





THE LIBRARY 
OF 
tide UNV ERSHY 
OF CALIFORNIA 
LOS ANGELES 


GIFT OF 
FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
FOR THE 


ENGLISH READING ROOM 


tou re 
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ps" 


Ye Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2008 with funding from 
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THE TALES OF CHEKHOV 
VOL. VII 


THE BISHOP 
AND OTHER STORIES 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CO., LimiTED 
LONDON + BOMBAY - CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lp. 
TORONTO 


WTIiE BIsttO P 


AND OTHER STORIES 


BY 


ANTON CHEKHOV 


FROM THE RUSSIAN BY 


CONSTANCE GARNETT 


iNew Bork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1919 


All rights reserved 


CopyYyRiGHT, 1919, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 1919 


TuHeE BisHop . 


THE LETTER . 


EASTER Eve 
A NIGHTMARE 
THe MurRpDER 


UPROOTED . 


THE STEPPE . 


CONTENTS 


[el 


Pa (ap 2 


Baeticitd 
a Rag it Pie 
A ray 


hy cone Vy, 
Writ ligt, 
tee fa A 





THE BISHOP 





THE TALES OF CHEKHOV 


THE BISHOr 
I 


THE evening service was being celebrated on the 
eve of Palm Sunday in the Old Petrovsky Convent. 
When they began distributing the palm it was close 
upon ten o’clock, the candles were burning dimly, the 
wicks wanted snufling; it was all in a sort of mist. 
In the twilight of the church the crowd seemed heav- 
ing like the sea, and to Bishop Pyotr, who had been 
unwell for the last three days, it seemed that all the 
faces — old and young, men’s and women’s — were 
alike, that everyone who came up for the palm had 
the same expression in his eyes. In the mist he could 
not see the doors; the crowd kept moving and looked 
as though there were no end to it. The female 
choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for 
the day. 

How stifling, how hot it was! How long the 
service went on! Bishop Pyotr was tired. His 
‘breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was 
parched, his shoulders ached with weariness, his 
legs were trembling. And it disturbed him unpleas- 
antly when a religious maniac uttered occasional 


shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden, as 
3 


4 The Tales of Chekhov 


though in a dream or delirium, it seemed to the 
bishop as though his own mother Marya Timo- 
fyevna, whom he had not seen for nine years, or 
some old woman just like his mother, came up to him 
out of the crowd, and, after taking a palm branch 
from him, walked away looking at him all the while 
good-humouredly with a kind, joyful smile until she 
was lost in the crowd. And for some reason tears 
flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart, 
everything was well, yet he kept gazing fixedly to- 
wards the left choir, where the prayers were being 
read, where in the dusk of evening you could not 
recognize anyone, and— wept. Tears glistened on 
his face and on his beard. Here someone close at 
hand was weeping, then someone else farther away, 
then others and still others, and little by little the 
church was filled with soft weeping. And a little 
later, within five minutes, the nuns’ choir was singing; 
no one was weeping and everything was as before. 
Soon the service was over. When the bishop got 
into his carriage to drive home, the gay, melodious 
chime of the heavy, costly bells was filling the whole 
garden inthe moonlight. The white walls, the white 
crosses on the tombs, the white birch-trees and black 
shadows, and the far-away moon in the sky exactly 
over the convent, seemed now living their own life, 
apart and incomprehensible, yet very near to man. 
It was the beginning of April, and after the warm 
spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of 
frost, and the breath of spring could be felt in the 
soft, chilly air. ‘The road from the convent to the 
town was sandy, the horses had to go at a walking 
pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the bril- 


The Bishop 5 


liant, peaceful moonlight there were people trudging 
along home from church through the sand. And all 
was silent, sunk in thought; everything around 
seemed kindly, youthful, akin, everything — trees 
and sky and even the moon, and one longed to think 
that so it would be always. 

At last the carriage drove into the town and 
rumbled along the principal street. The shops were 
already shut, but at Erakin’s, the millionaire shop- 
keeper’s, they were trying the new electric lights, 
which flickered brightly, and a crowd of people were 
gathered round. Then came wide, dark, deserted 
streets, one after another; then the highroad, the 
open country, the fragrance of pines. And suddenly 
there rose up before the bishop’s eyes a white tur- 
reted wall, and behind it a tall belfry in the full 
moonlight, and beside it five shining, golden cupolas: 
this was the Pankratievsky Monastery, in which 
Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high above the 
monastery, was the silent, dreamy moon. The car- 
riage drove in at the gate, crunching over the sand; 
here and there in the moonlight there were glimpses 
of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of 
footsteps on the flag-stones. . . . 

‘You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived 
while you were away,” the lay brother informed the 
bishop as he went into his cell. 

‘“My mother? When did she come? ”’ 

“Before the evening service. She asked first 
where you were and then she went to the convent.” 
_ ‘Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! 
‘Oh, Lord!” 

And the bishop. laughed with joy. 


6 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘She bade me tell your holiness,” the lay brother 
went on, ‘‘ that she would come to-morrow. She had 
a little girl with her —her grandchild, I suppose. 
They are staying at Ovsyannikov’s inn.” 

‘“ What time is it now?” 

7 alittle atter eleven: 

‘Oh, how vexing!” 

The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hes- 
itating, and as it were refusing to believe it was so 
late. His arms and legs were stiff, his head ached. 
He was hot and uncomfortable. After resting a 
little he went into his bedroom, and there, too, he 
sat a little, still thinking of his mother; he could 
hear the lay brother going away, and Father Sisoy 
coughing the other side of the wall. The monastery 
clock struck a quarter. 

The bishop changed his clothes and began read- 
ing the prayers before sleep. He read attentively 
those old, long familiar prayers, and at the same 
time thought about his mother. She had nine chil- 
dren and about forty grandchildren. At one time, 
she had lived with her husband, the deacon, in a poor 
village; she had lived there a very long time from 
the age of seventeen to sixty. The bishop remem- 
bered her from early childhood, almost from the age 
of three, and — how he had loved her! Sweet, pre- 
cious childhood, always fondly remembered! Why 
did it, that long-past time that could never return, 
why did it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive 
than it had really been? When in his childhood or 
youth he had been ill, how tender and sympathetic 
his mother had been! And now his prayers mingled 
with the memories, which gleamed more and more 


The Bishop 7 


brightly like a flame, and the prayers did not hinder 
his thinking of his mother. 

When he had finished his prayers he undressed 
and lay down, and at once, as soon as it was dark, 
there rose before his mind his dead father, his 
mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak 
of wheels, the bleat of sheep, the church bells on 
bright summer mornings, the gypsies under the win- 
dow — oh, how sweet to think of it! He remem- 
bered the priest of Lesopolye, Father Simeon — 
mild, gentle, kindly; he was a lean little man, while 
his son, a divinity student, was a huge fellow and 
talked in a roaring bass voice. ‘The priest’s son had 
flown into a rage with the cook and abused her: 
‘“ Ah, you Jehud’s ass!” and Father Simeon over- 
hearing it, said not a word, and was only ashamed 
because he could not remember where such an ass 
was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at 
Lesopolye had been Father Demyan, who used to 
drink heavily, and at times drank till he saw green 
snakes, and was even nicknamed Demyan Snakeseer. 
The schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Niko- 
laitch, who had been a divinity student, a kind and 
intelligent man, but he, too, was a drunkard; he never 
beat the schoolchildren, but for some reason he al- 
ways had hanging on his wall a bunch of birch-twigs, 
and below it an utterly meaningless inscription in 
Latin: ‘‘ Betula kinderbalsamica secuta.”’ He had 
a shaggy black dog whom he called Syntax. 

And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Leso- 
polye was the village Obnino with a wonder-working 
ikon. In the summer they used to carry the ikon in 
procession about the neighbouring villages and ring 


8 The Tales of Chekhov 


the bells the whole day long; first in one village and 
then in another, and it used to seem to the bishop 
then that joy was quivering in the air, and he (in 
those days his name was Pavlusha) used to follow 
the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot, with naive faith, 
with a naive smile, infinitely happy. In Obnino, he 
remembered now, there were always a lot of people, 
and the priest there, Father Alexey, to save time 
during mass, used to make his deaf nephew Ilarion 
read the names of those for whose health or whose 
souls’ peace prayers were asked. Ilarion used to 
read them, now and then getting a five or ten kopeck 
piece for the service, and only when he was grey and 
bald, when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw 
written on one of the pieces of paper: ‘‘ What a 
fool you are, Ilarion.”” Up to fifteen at least Pav- 
lusha was undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so 
much so that they thought of taking him away from 
the clerical school and putting him into a shop; one 
day, going to the post at Obnino for letters, he had 
stared a long time at the post-office clerks and asked: 
‘“ Allow me to ask, how do you get your salary, every 
month or every day?” 

His holiness crossed himself and turned over on 
the other side, trying to stop thinking and go to 
sleep. 

‘“My mother has come,” he remembered and 
laughed. 

The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was 
lighted up, and there were shadows onit. A cricket 
was chirping. Through the wall Father Sisoy was 
snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had a 
sound that suggested loneliness, forlornness, even 


The Bishop 9 


vagrancy. Sisoy had once been housekeeper to the 
bishop of the diocese, and was called now “the 
former Father Housekeeper ’’; he was seventy years 
old, he lived in a monastery twelve miles from the 
town and stayed sometimes in the town, too. He 
had come to the Pankratievsky Monastery three days 
before, and the bishop had kept him that he might 
talk to him at his leisure about matters of business, 
about the arrangements here. . . . 

At half-past one they began ringing for matins. 
Father Sisoy could be heard coughing, muttering 
something in a discontented voice, then he got up 
and walked barefoot about the rooms. 

‘Father Sisoy,”’ the bishop called. 

Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made 
his appearance in his boots, with a candle; he had on 
his cassock over his underclothes and on his head was 
an old faded skull-cap. 

“I can’t sleep,” said the bishop, sitting up. ‘I 
must be unwell. And what it is I don’t know. 
ever)” 

‘You must have caught cold, your holiness. You 
must be rubbed with tallow.” Sisoy stood a little 
and yawned. ‘‘O Lord, forgive me, a sinner.” 

“They had the electric lights on at Erakin’s to- 
day;? he said), lL don’t like: it!” 

Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatis- 
fied with something, and his eyes were angry-looking 
and prominent as a crab’s. 

‘I don’t like it,” he said, going away. ‘I don’t 
like it. Bother it!” 


10 The Tales of Chekhov 


II 


Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the serv- 
ice in the cathedral in the town, then he visited the 
bishop of the diocese, then visited a very sick old 
lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove home. 
Between one and two o’clock he had welcome visitors 
dining with him — his mother and his niece Katya, a 
child of eight years old. All dinner-time the spring 
sunshine was streaming in at the windows, throwing 
bright light on the white tablecloth and on Katya’s 
red hair. Through the double windows they could 
hear the noise of the rooks and the notes of the star- 
lings in the garden. 

“Tt is nine years since we have met,” said the old 
lady. ‘‘ And when [I looked at you in the monastery 
yesterday, good Lord! you’ve not changed a bit, ex- 
cept maybe you are thinner and your beard is a little 
longer. Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yester- 
day at the evening service no one could help crying. 
I, too, as I looked at you, suddenly began crying, 
though I couldn’t say why. His Holy Will!” 

And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she 
said this, he could see she was constrained as though 
she were uncertain whether to address him formally 
or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that she felt her- 
self more a deacon’s widow than his mother. And 
Katya gazed without blinking at her uncle, his holi- 
ness, as though trying to discover what sort of a 
person he was. Her hair sprang up from under 
the comb and the velvet ribbon and stood out like a 
halo: she had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The 


The Bishop 11 


child had broken a glass before sitting down to din- 
ner, and now her grandmother, as she talked, moved 
away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tum- 
bler. ‘The bishop listened to his mother and remem- 
bered how many, many years ago she used to take 
him and his brothers and sisters to relations whom 
she considered rich; in those days she was taken up 
with the care of her children, now with her grand- 
children, and she had brought Katya... . 

‘Your sister, Varenka, has four children,” she 
told him; “ Katya, here, is the eldest. And your 
brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick, God knows of 
what, and died three days before the Assumption; 
and my poor Varenka is left a beggar.” 

“And how is Nikanor getting on?” the bishop 
asked about his eldest brother. 

“He is all right, thank God. Though he has 
nothing much, yet he can live. Only there is one 
thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did not want 
to go into the Church; he has gone to the university 
to be a doctor. He thinks it is better; but who 
knows! His Holy Will!” 

‘““Nikolasha cuts up dead people,” said Katya, 
spilling water over her knees. 

“Sit still, child,’ her grandmother observed 
calmly, and took the glass out of her hand. ‘“‘ Say 
a prayer, and go on eating.” 

“* How long it is since we have seen each other! ” 
said the bishop, and he tenderly stroked his mother’s 
hand and shoulder; “‘and I missed you abroad, 
mother, I missed you dreadfully.” 

“Thank you.” 

“"T used to sit in the evenings at the open window, 


12 The Tales of Chekhov 


lonely and alone; often there was music playing, and 
all at once I used to be overcome with homesickness 
and felt as though I would give everything only to be 
at home and see you.” 

His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made 
a grave face and said: 

* Thank you.’ 

His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his 
mother and could not understand how she had come 
by that respectfulness, that timid expression of face: 
what was it for? And he did not recognize her. 
He felt sad and vexed. And then his head ached 
just as it had the day before; his legs felt fearfully 
tired, and the fish seemed to him stale and tasteless; 
he felt thirsty all the time. . . . 

After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived 
and sat for an hour and a half in silence with rigid 
countenances; the archimandrite, a silent, rather deaf 
man, came to see him about business. Then they 
began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting be- 
hind the wood and the day was over. When he re- 
turned from church, he hurriedly said his prayers, 
got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as 
possible. 

It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had 
eaten at dinner. The moonlight worried him, and 
then he heard talking. In an adjoining room, ‘prob- 
ably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics: 

‘““There’s war among the Japanese now. They 
are fighting. The Japanese, my good soul, are the 
same as the Montenegrins; they are the same race. 
They were under the Turkish yoke together.” 


The Bishop 13 


And then he heard the voice of Marya Timo- 
fyevna: 

‘‘So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we 
went, you know, to Father Yegor at Novokatnoye, 
SON) 

And she kept on saying, “‘ having had tea” or 
“having drunk tea,” and it seemed as though the 
only thing she had done in her life was to drink tea. 

The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the sem- 
inary, the academy. For three years he had been 
Greek teacher in the seminary: by that time he could 
not read without spectacles. Then he had become a 
monk; he had been made a school inspector. Then 
he had defended his thesis for his degree. When 
he was thirty-two he had been made rector of the 
seminary, and consecrated archimandrite: and then 
his life had been so easy, so pleasant; it seemed so 
long, so long, no end was in sight. Then he had be- 
gun to be ill, had grown very thin and almost blind, 
and by the advice of the doctors had to give up every- 
thing and go abroad. 

‘‘ And what then? ”’ asked Sisoy in the next room. 

/ Dhen\ we drank) tea,. : .” ‘answered \Miaryga 
Timofyevana. 

‘Good gracious, you’ve got a green beard,” said 
Katya suddenly in surprise, and she laughed. 

The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Fa- 
ther Sisoy’s beard really had a shade of green in it, 
and he laughed. 

‘“God have mercy upon us, what we have to put 
up with with this girl!” said Sisoy, aloud, getting 
angry. ‘“‘Spoilt child! Sit quiet!” 


14 The Tales of Chekhov 


The bishop remembered the perfectly new white 
church in which he had conducted the services while 
living abroad, he remembered the sound of the warm 
sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms; in his 
study he had a new writing-table, lots of books. He 
had read a great deal and often written. And he 
remembered how he had pined for his native land, 
how a blind beggar woman had played the guitar un- 
der his window every day and sung of love, and how, 
as he listened, he had always for some reason thought 
of the past. But eight years had passed and he had 
been called back to Russia, and now he was a suffra- 
gan bishop, and all the past had retreated far away 
into the mist as though it were a dream. . . . 

Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle. 

‘““T say!’ he said, wondering, “ are you asleep al- 
ready, your holiness?” 

What is it?” 

‘Why, it’s still early, ten o'clock or less. I 
bought a candle to-day; I wanted to rub you with 
tallow.” 

‘Diam in afever’.).)/"\/said) the bishop, and he 
sat up. ‘I really ought to have something. My 
Headis badynii 

Sisoy took off the bishop’s shirt and began rub- 
bing his chest and back with tallow. 

i ihatis the) way) thats, thevwvearaie sae 
said: "Word Jesus \Christ)/:h4) thats the) way.,) I 
walked to the town to-day; I was at what’s-his-name’s 
— the chief priest Sidonsky’s. . . . I had tea with 
him.) f).don’t like) him: Bord jesus /Christ.) .... 
That’s the way. I don’t like him.” 


The Bishop 15 


III 


The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was 
ill with rheumatism or gout, and had been in bed for 
overamonth. Bishop Pyotr went to see him almost 
every day, and saw all who came to ask his help. 
And now that he was unwell he was struck by the 
emptiness, the triviality of everything which they 
asked and for which they wept; he was vexed at their 
ignorance, their timidity; and all this useless, petty 
business oppressed him by the mass of it, and it 
seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan 
bishop, who had once in his young days written on 
“The Doctrines of the Freedom of the Will,” and 
now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to have for- 
gotten everything, and to have no thoughts of re- 
ligion. The bishop must have lost touch with Rus- 
sian life while he was abroad; he did not find it easy; 
the peasants seemed to him coarse, the women who 
sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and 
their teachers uncultivated and at times savage. 
And the documents coming in and going out were 
reckoned by tens of thousands; and what documents 
they were! The higher clergy in the whole diocese 
gave the priests, young and old, and even their wives 
and children, marks for their behaviour —a five, a 
four, and sometimes even a three; and about this he 
had to talk and to read and write serious reports. 
And there was positively not one minute to spare; 
his soul was troubled all day long, and the bishop 
was only at peace when he was in church. 


16 The Tales of Chekhov 


He could not get used, either, to the awe which, 
through no wish of his own, he inspired in people in 
spite of his quiet, modest disposition. All the peo- 
ple in the province seemed to him little, scared, and 
guilty when he looked at them. Everyone was timid 
in his presence, even the old chief priests; everyone 
‘‘ flopped ” at his feet, and not long previously an old 
lady, a village priest’s wife who had come to consult 
him, was so overcome by awe that she could not utter 
a single word, and went empty away. And he, who 
could never in his sermons bring himself to speak 
ill of people, never reproached anyone because he 
was so sorry for them, was moved to fury with the 
people who came to consult him, lost his temper and 
flung their petitions on the floor. The whole time 
he had been here, not one person had spoken to him 
genuinely, simply, as to a human being; even his old 
mother seemed now not the same! And why, he 
wondered, did she chatter away to Sisoy and laugh 
so much; while with him, her son, she was grave and 
usually silent and constrained, which did not suit 
her at all. The only person who behaved freely with 
him and said what he meant was old Sisoy, who had 
spent his whole life in the presence of bishops and 
had outlived eleven of them. And so the bishop 
was at ease with him, although, of course, he was a 
tedious and nonsensical man. 

After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr 
was in the diocesan bishop’s house receiving petitions 
there; he got excited and angry, and then drove 
home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be 
in bed, but he had hardly reached home whenyshe was 
informed that a young merchant called Erakin, who 


The Bishop 17 


subscribed liberally to charities, had come to see him 
about a very important matter. The bishop had to 
see him. Erakin stayed about an hour, talked very 
loud, almost shouted, and it was difficult to under- 
stand what he said. 

‘““God grant it may,” he said as he went away. 
‘““ Most essential! According to circumstances, your 
holiness! I trust it may!” 

After him came the Mother Superior from a dis- 
tant convent. And when she had gone they began 
ringing for vespers. He had to go to church. 

In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with 
inspiration. A young priest with a black beard con- 
ducted the service; and the bishop, hearing of the 
Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the Heay- 
enly Mansion adorned for the festival, felt no re- 
pentance for his sins, no tribulation, but peace at 
heart and tranquillity. And he was carried back in 
thought to the distant past, to his childhood and 
youth, when, too, they used to sing of the Bride- 
groom and of the Heavenly Mansion; and now that 
past rose up before him — living, fair, and joyful as 
in all likelihood it never had been. And perhaps in 
the other world, in the life to come, we shall think of 
the distant past, of our life here, with the same feel- 
ing. Who knows? ‘The bishop was sitting near 
the altar. It was dark; tears lowed down his face. 
He thought that here he had attained everything a 
man in his position could attain; he had faith and yet 
everything was not clear, something was lacking still. 
He did not want to die; and he still felt that he had 
missed what was most important, something of which 
he had dimly dreamed in the past; and he was trou- 


18 The Tales of Chekhov 


bled by the same hopes for the future as he had felt 
in childhood, at the academy and abroad. 

‘“ How well they sing to-day!” he thought, listen- 
ing to the singing. ‘‘ How nice it is!” 


IV 


On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; 
it was the Washing of Feet. When the service was 
over and the people were going home, it was sunny, 
warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the un- 
ceasing trilling of the larks, tender, telling of peace, 
rose from the fields outside the town. ‘The trees 
were already awakening and smiling a welcome, while 
above them the infinite, fathomless blue sky stretched 
into the distance, God knows whither. 

On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, 
then changed his clothes, lay down on his bed, and 
told the lay brother to close the shutters on the win- 
dows. The bedroom was darkened. But what 
weariness, what pain in his legs and his back, a chill 
heavy pain, what a noise in his ears! He had not 
slept for a long time — for a very long time, as it 
seemed to him now, and some trifling detail which 
haunted his brain as soon as his eyes were closed 
prevented him from sleeping. As on the day before, 
sounds reached him from the adjoining rooms 
through the walls, voices, the jingle of glasses and 
teaspoons. . . . Marya Timofyevna was gaily tell- 
ing Father Sisoy some story with quaint turns of 
speech, while the latter answered in a grumpy, ill- 
humoured voice: “Bother them! Not likely! 


The Bishop 19 


What next!”’ And the bishop again felt vexed and 
then hurt that with other people his old mother be- 
haved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her 
son, she was shy, spoke little, and did not say what 
she meant, and even, as he fancied, had during all 
those three days kept trying in his presence to find an 
excuse for standing up, because she was embarrassed 
at sitting before him. And his father? He, too, 
probably, if he had been living, would not have been 
able to utter a word in the bishop’s presence. . . . 

Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining 
room and was broken; Katya must have dropped a 
cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy suddenly spat and 
said angrily: 

‘““ What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord for- 
give my transgressions! One can’t provide enough 
for ter.” 

Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from 
outside. And when the bishop opened his eyes he 
saw Katya in his room, standing motionless, staring 
athim. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under 
the comb like a halo. 

os thatiyou,’ Katya?’ he) asked) Wiha isiit 
downstairs who keeps opening and shutting a door?” 

‘““T don’t hear it,” answered Katya; and she lis- 
tened. 

‘“ There, someone has just passed by.”’ 

‘ But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle.” 

He laughed and stroked her on the head. 

“So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead peo- 
ple?’ he asked after a pause. 

Pes, hes stadying.’ 

‘And is he kind?” 


20 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘““Oh, yes, he’s kind. But he drinks vodka aw. 
fully.” 

‘“* And what was it your father died of?” 

‘‘ Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at 
once his throat was bad. I was ill then, too, and 
brother Fedya; we all had bad throats. Papa died, 
uncle, and we got well.” 

Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in 
her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. 

‘“ Your holiness,”’ she said in a shrill voice, by now 
weeping bitterly, “‘ uncle, mother and all of us are 
left very wretched. . . . Give usa little money . . . 
do\be/kind 2.) ‘uncle darlings, 

He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time 
was too much touched to speak. Then he stroked 
her on the head, patted her on the shoulder and said: 

‘“Very good, very good, my child. When the 
holy Easter comes, we will talk it over. . . . I will 
help yous) ye) willshelip) yous ay, 

His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed 
before the ikon. Noticing that he was not sleeping, 
she said: 

‘“'Won’t you have a drop of soup?” 

“No, thank you,” he answered, “ I am not hun- 
gry.” 

‘“You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I 
should think so; you may well be ill! The whole 
day on your legs, the whole day. . . . And, my good- 
ness, it makes one’s heart ache even to look at you! 
Well, Easter is not far off; you will rest then, please 
God. Then we will have a talk, too, but now I’m 
not going to disturb you with my chatter. Come 
along, Katya; let his holiness sleep a little.” 


The Bishop Pu. 


And he remembered how once very long ago, when 
he was a boy, she had spoken exactly like that, in 
the same jestingly respectful tone, with a Church 
dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind 
eyes and the timid, anxious glance she stole at him as 
she went out of the room could one have guessed that 
this was his mother. He shut his eyes and seemed 
to sleep, but twice heard the clock strike and Father 
Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. And once 
more his mother came in and looked ttmidly at him 
for a minute. Someone drove up to the steps, as 
he could hear, in a coach or in a chaise. Suddenly 
a knock, the door slammed, the lay brother came into 
the bedroom. 

‘Your holiness,” he called. 

a Well?” 

“The horses are here; it’s time for the evening 
service.” 

‘What o’clock is it?” 

‘“‘ A quarter past seven.” 

He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During 
all the ‘‘ Twelve Gospels” he had to stand in the 
middle of the church without moving, and the first 
gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read 
himself. A mood of confidence and courage came 
over him. That first gospel, ‘‘ Now is the Son of 
Man glorified,” he knew by heart; and as he read 
he raised his eyes from time to time, and saw on 
both sides a perfect sea of lights and heard the 
splutter of candles, but, as in past years, he could not 
see the people, and it seemed as though these were 
all the same people as had been round him in those 
days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would 


22 The Tales of Chekhov 


always be the same every year and till such time as 
God only knew. 

His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a 
priest, his great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole 
family, perhaps from the days when Christianity 
had been accepted in Russia, had belonged to the 
priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for 
the priesthood, for the peal of the bells, was deep 
in him, ineradicable, innate. In church, particularly 
when he took part in the service, he felt vigorous, 
of good cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when 
the eighth gospel had been read, he felt that his 
voice had grown weak, even his cough was inaudible. 
His head had begun to ache intensely, and he was 
troubled by a fear that he might fall down. And 
his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees 
he ceased to feel them and could not understand how 
or on what he was standing, and why he did not 
1D A 

It was a quarter to twelve when the service was 
over. When he reached home, the bishop undressed 
and went to bed at once without even saying his 
prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could 
not have stood up. When he had covered his head 
with the quilt he felt a sudden longing to be abroad, 
an insufferable longing! He felt that he would give 
his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters, those 
low ceilings, not to smell that heavy monastery smell. 
If only there were one person to whom he could have 
talked, have opened his heart! 

For a long while he heard footsteps in the next 
room and could not tell whose they were. At last 


The Bishop 22 


the door opened, and Sisoy came in with a candle and 
a tea-cup in his hand. 

“You are in bed already, your holiness?” he 
asked. ‘‘ Here I have come to rub you with spirit 
and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a great deal 
of good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That’s the way 

. . that’s the way. . . . I’ve just been in our mon- 
astery. . . . I don’t like it. I’m going away from 
here to-morrow, your holiness; I don’t want to 
stay longer. Lord’ Jesus Christ...) 2 Phat’s the 
Wayes es. 

Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and 
he felt as though he had been a whole year in the 
Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all, listening to 
him it was difficult to understand where his home 
was, whether he cared for anyone or anything, 
whether he believed in God. . . . He did not know 
himself why he was a monk, and, indeed, he did 
not think about it, and the time when he had become 
a monk had long passed out of his memory; it seemed 
as though he had been born a monk. 

‘“[m going away to-morrow; God be with them 
all.” 

‘““T should like to talk to you. . . . I can’t find 
the time,” said the bishop softly with an effort. “I 
don’t know anything or anybody here. . . .” 

“Tl stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I 
don’t want to stay longer. Iam sick of them! ” 

““T ought not to be a bishop,’ said the bishop 
softly. “‘I ought to have been a village priest, a 
deacon’. .’. or, simply a monk.) .)/)> All) this op- 
presses me . . . oppresses me.” 


24 The Tales of Chekhov 
‘What? Lord Jesus Christ... . That’s the 


way. ‘Come, sleep well, your holiness! ... 
What’s the good of talking? It’s no use. Good- 
night!” 

The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight 
o’clock in the morning he began to have hemorrhage 
from the bowels. The lay brother was alarmed, 
and ran first to the archimandrite, then for the mon- 
astery doctor, Ivan Andreyitch, who lived in the 
town. The doctor, a stout old man with a long grey 
beard, made a prolonged examination of the bishop, 
and kept shaking his head and frowning, then said: 

“Do you know, your holiness, you have got 
typhoid?” 

After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop 
looked much thinner, paler, and wasted; his face 
looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger, and he 
seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that 
he was thinner, weaker, more insignificant than any- 
one, that everything that had been had retreated 
far, far away and would never go on again or be 
repeated. 

“ How good,” he thought, “ how good!” 

His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face 
_and his big eyes, she was frightened, she fell on her 
knees by the bed and began kissing his face, his 
shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed 
that he was thinner, weaker, and more insignificant 
than anyone, and now she forgot that he was a 
bishop, and kissed him as though he were a child 
very near and very dear to her. | 

‘“Pavlusha, darling,’ she said; ‘“my own, my 


The Bishop 2g 


darling son! . . . Why are you like this? Pav- 
lusha, answer me!” 

Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable 
to understand what was the matter with her uncle, 
why there was such a look of suffering on her grand- 
mother’s face, why she was saying such sad and 
touching things. By now he could not utter a word, 
he could understand nothing, and he imagined he was 
a simple ordinary man, that he was walking quickly, 
cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his stick, 
while above him was the open sky bathed in sunshine, 
and that he was free now as a bird and could go 
where he liked! 

‘“‘ Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me,” the old 
woman was saying. ‘‘ What is it? My own!” 

‘Don’t disturb his holiness,’ Sisoy said angrily, 
walking about the room. “Let him sleep... 
what's the use . 4. it’s'no good... » 

Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and 
went away again. ‘The day was long, incredibly 
long, then the night came on and passed slowly, 
slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay 
brother went in to the old mother who was lying on 
the sofa in the parlour, and asked her to go into the 
bedroom: the bishop had just breathed his last. 

Next day was Easter Sunday. ‘There were forty- 
two.churches and six monasteries in the town; the 
sonorous, joyful clang of the bells hung over the 
town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the 
spring air aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun 
was shining brightly. ‘The big market square was 
noisy, swings were going, barrel organs were playing, 


26 The Tales of Chekhov 


accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were 
shouting. After midday people began driving up 
and down the principal street. 

In short, all was merriment, everything was sat- 
isfactory, just as it had been the year before, and as 
it will be in all likelihood next year. 

A month later a new suffragan bishop was ap- 
pointed, and no one thought anything more of Bishop 
Pyotr, and afterwards he was completely forgotten. 
And only the dead man’s old mother, who is living 
to-day with her son-in-law the deacon in a remote 
little district town, when she goes out at night to 
bring her cow in and meets other women at the 
pasture, begins talking of her children and her grand- 
children, and says that she had a son a bishop, and 
this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be be- 
lievedsi wy)! 

And, indeed, there are some who do not believe 


her. 


AUS Mig y a. 





THE LET PER 


Tue clerical superintendent of the district, his Rever- 
ence Father Fyodor Orlov, a handsome, well-nour- 
ished man of fifty, grave and important as he always 
was, with an habitual expression of dignity that never 
left his face, was walking to and fro in his little 
drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and thinking in- 
tensely about the same thing: ‘‘ When would his 
visitor go?’ The thought worried him and did not 
leave him for a minute. The visitor, Father Anas- 
tasy, the priest of one of the villages near the town, 
had come to him three hours before on some very 
unpleasant and dreary business of his own, had stayed 
on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a little 
round table with his elbow on a thick account book, 
and apparently had no thought of going, though it 
was getting on for nine o’clock in the evening. 
Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to 
go. It not infrequently happens that even diplomatic 
persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that 
their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in 
their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is 
being concealed with an effort and disguised with a 
lie. But Father Anastasy perceived it clearly, and 
realized that his presence was burdensome and in- 
appropriate, that his Reverence, who had taken an 
early morning service in the night and a long mass 
at midday, was exhausted and longing for repose; 
29 


30 The Tales of Chekhov 


every minute he was meaning to get up and go, but 
he did not get up, he sat on as though he were 
waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty- 
five, prematurely aged, with a bent and bony figure, 
with a sunken face and the dark skin of old age, with 
red eyelids and a long narrow back like a fish’s; he 
was dressed in a smart cassock of a light lilac colour, 
but too big for him (presented to him by the widow 
of a young priest lately deceased), a full cloth coat 
with a broad leather belt, and clumsy high boots the 
size and hue of which showed clearly that Father 
Anastasy dispensed with goloshes. In spite of his 
position and his venerable age, there was something 
pitiful, crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red 
eyes, in the strands of grey hair with a shade of 
green in it on the nape of his neck, and in the big 
shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . He sat with- 
out speaking or moving, and coughed with circum- 
spection, as though afraid that the sound of his 
coughing might make his presence more noticeable. 

The old man had come to see his Reverence on 
business. ‘Two months before he had been pro- 
hibited from officiating till further notice, and his 
case was being inquired into. His shortcomings 
were numerous. He was intemperate in his habits, 
fell out with the other clergy and the commune, kept 
the church records and accounts carelessly — these 
were the formal charges against him; but besides 
all that, there had been rumours for a long time past 
that he celebrated unlawful marriages for money and 
sold certificates of having fasted and taken the sacra- 
ment to officials and officers who came to him from 
the town. These rumours were maintained the more 


The Letter 31 


persistently that he was poor and had nine children 
to keep, who were as incompetent and unsuccessful 
as himself. The sons were spoilt and uneducated, 
and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daugh- 
ters were ugly and did not get married. 

Not having the moral force to be open, his Rever- 
ence walked up and down the room and said nothing 
or spoke in hints. 

“So you are not going home to-night?’ he asked, 
stopping near the dark window and poking with his 
little finger into the cage where a canary was asleep 
with its feathers puffed out. 

Father Anastasy started, coughed cautiously and 
said rapidly: 

“Home? Idon’t care to, Fyodor Ilyitch. I can- 
not officiate, as you know, so what am I to do there? 
I came away on purpose that I might not have to 
look the people in the face. One is ashamed not 
to officiate, as you know. Besides, I have business 
here, Fyodor Ilyitch. To-morrow after breaking 
the fast I want to talk things over thoroughly with 
the Father charged with the inquiry.” 

“Ah! .. .” yawned his Reverence, ‘‘ and where 
are you staying?” 

‘“* At Zyavkin’s.” 

Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within 
two hours his Reverence had to take the Easter-night 
service, and he felt so ashamed of his unwelcome 
burdensome presence that he made up his mind to 
go away at once and let the exhausted man rest. 
And the old man got up to go. But before he began 
saying good-bye he stood clearing his throat for a 
minute and looking searchingly at his Reverence’s 


a2 The Tales of Chekhov 


back, still with the same expression of vague expecta- 
tion in his whole figure; his face was working with 
shame, timidity, and a pitiful forced laugh such as 
one sees in people who do not respect themselves. 
Waving his hand as it were resolutely, he said with 
a husky quavering laugh: 

‘Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid 
them give me at leave-taking . . . one little glass of 
vodka.” 

‘It’s not the time to drink vodka now,” said his 
Reverence sternly. ‘One must have some regard 
for decency.”’ 

Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by 
confusion; he laughed, and, forgetting his resolution 
to go away, dropped back on his chair. His Rever- 
ence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and his 
bent figure and he felt sorry for the old man. 

‘’ Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow,” 
he said, wishing to soften his stern refusal. ‘‘ Every- 
thing is good in due season.” 

His Reverence believed in people’s reforming, 
but now when a feeling of pity had been kindled in 
him it seemed to him that this disgraced, worn-out 
old man, entangled in a network of sins and weak- 
nesses, was hopelessly wrecked, that there was no 
power on earth that could straighten out his spine, 
give brightness to his eyes and restrain the unpleasant 
timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smooth 
over to some slight extent the repulsive impression 
he made on people. 

The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not 
guilty and not vicious, but humiliated, insulted, un- 
fortunate; his Reverence thought of his wife, his nine 


The Letter 33 


children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin’s; he 
thought for some reason of the people who are glad 
to see priests drunk and persons in authority detected 
in crimes; and thought that the very best thing Father 
Anastasy could do now would be to die as soon as 
possible and to depart from this world for ever. 

There was a sound of footsteps. 

‘“Father Fyodor, you are not resting?’ a bass 
voice asked from the passage. 

‘“ No, deacon; come in.”’ 

Orlov’s colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly 
man with a big bald patch on the top of his head, 
though his hair was still black and he was still vig- 
orous-looking with thick black eyebrows like a 
Georgian’s, walked in. He bowed to Father Anas- 
tasy and sat down. 

‘“What good news have you?”’ asked his Rever- 
ence. 

‘“What good news?” answered the deacon, and 
after a pause he went on with a smile: ‘‘ When 
your children are little, your trouble is small; when 
your children are big, your trouble is great. Such 
goings on, Father Fyodor, that I don’t know what 
to think of it. It’s a regular farce, that’s what it 
ISL 

He paused again for a little, smiled still more 
broadly and said: 

“Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov 
to-day. He has been telling me about my Pyotr. 
He has been to see him twice, he tells me.” 

“What has he been telling you, then? ”’ 

““He has upset me, God bless him. He meant 
to please me, but when I came to think it over, it 


ell The Tales of Chekhov 


seems there is not much to be pleased at. I ought 
to) grieve rather than) be))pleased.’:)):\).))) Your Pe= 
trushka,/)\said’ he," lives vumaine style! ilevisitar 
above us now,’ said he. ‘ Well, thank God for that,’ 
said I. ‘I dined with him,’ said he, ‘and saw his 
whole manner of life. He lives like a gentleman,’ 
he said; ‘ you couldn’t wish to live better.’ I was 
naturally interested and I asked, ‘ And what did you 
have for dinner?’ ‘ First,’ he said, ‘a fish course 
something like fish soup, then tongue and peas,’ and 
then he said, ‘ roast turkey.’ ‘ Turkey in Lent? that 
is something to please me,’ said I. ‘Turkey in 
Rent? (ihe? 

‘“ Nothing marvellous in that,” said his Reverence, 
screwing up his eyes ironically. And sticking both 
thumbs in his belt, he drew himself up and said in 
the tone in which he usually delivered discourses or 
gave his Scripture lessons to the pupils in the district 
school: ‘ People who do not keep the fasts are 
divided into two different categories: some do not 
keep them through laxity, others through infidelity. 
Your Pyotr does not keep them through infidelity. 
Mies. 

The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor’s 
stern face and said: 

There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and 
discussed one thing and another, and it turned out 
that my infidel of a son is living with some madame, 
another man’s wife. She takes the place of wife and 
hostess in his flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors 
and all the rest of it, as though she were his lawful 
wife. For over two years he has been keeping up 
this dance with this viper. It’s a regular farce. 


The Letter a5 


They have been living together three years and no 
children.” 

‘“T suppose they have been living in chastity!” 
chuckled Father Anastasy, coughing huskily. 
“There are children, Father Deacon — there are, 
but they don’t keep them at home! ‘They send them 
to the Foundling! MHe-he-he! ...” Anastasy 
went on coughing till he choked. 

‘“‘ Don’t interfere, Father Anastasy,” said his Rev- 
erence sternly. 

‘“ Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, ‘ What madame 
is this helping the soup at your table?’ ”’ the deacon 
went on, gloomily scanning Anastasy’s bent figure. 
my bhatvis my wife,’ said he. |* When! was your 
wedding?’ Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, and 
Pyotr answered, ‘We were married at Kulikov’s 
restaurant.’ ”’ 

His Reverence’s eyes flashed wrathfully and the 
colour came into his temples. Apart from his sin- 
fulness, Pyotr was not a person he liked. Father 
Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He 
remembered him a boy at school — he remembered 
him distinctly, because even then the boy had seemed 
to him not normal. As a schoolboy, Petrusha had 
been ashamed to serve at the altar, had been offended 
at being addressed without ceremony, had not 
crossed himself on entering the room, and what was 
still more noteworthy, was fond of talking a great 
deal and with heat— and, in Father Fyodor’s 
opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and 
pernicious to them; moreover Petrusha had taken up 
a contemptuous and critical attitude to fishing, a pur- 
suit to which both his Reverence and the deacon were 


36 The Tales of Chekhov 


greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr had not gone 
to church at all, had slept till midday, had looked 
down on people, and had been given to raising deli- 
cate and insoluble questions with a peculiarly pro- 
voking zest. 

‘What would you have?” his Reverence asked, 
going up to the deacon and looking at him angrily. 
‘What would you have? This was to be expected! 
I always knew and was convinced that nothing good 
would come of your Pyotr! I told you so, and I 
tell youso now. What you have sown, that now you 
must reap! Reap it!” 

“But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?” the 
deacon asked softly, looking up at his Reverence. 

‘Why, who is to blame if not you? You're his 
father, he is your offspring! You ought to have ad- 
monished him, have instilled the fear of God into 
him. A child must be taught! You have brought 
him into the world, but you haven’t trained him up 
in the right way. It’s a sin! It’s wrong! It’s a 
shame! ”’ 

His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and 
fro and went on talking. Drops of perspiration 
came out on the deacon’s bald head and forehead. 
He raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of 
guilt, and said: 

‘But didn’t I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord 
have mercy on us, haven’t I been a father to my 
children? You know yourself I spared nothing for 
his good; I have prayed and done my best all my 
life to give him a thorough education. He went to 
the high school and I got him tutors, and he took 
his degree at the University. And as to my not be- 


The! Letter 37 


ing able to influence his mind, Father Fyodor, why, 
you can judge for yourself that I am not qualified 
to do so! Sometimes when he used to come here as 
a student, I would begin admonishing him in my way, 
and he wouldn’t heed me. I'd say to him, ‘ Go to 
church,’ and he would answer, ‘What for?’ I 
would begin explaining, and he would say, ‘ Why? 
what for?’ Or he would slap me on the shoulder 
and say, ‘ Everything in this world is relative, ap- 
proximate and conditional. I don’t know anything, 
and you don’t know anything either, dad.’ ” 

Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his 
throat and waved his fingers in the air as though 
preparing to say something. His Reverence glanced 
at him and said sternly: 

“* Don’t interfere, Father Anastasy.” 

The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently 
listened with pleasure to the deacon as though he 
were glad there were other sinful persons in this 
world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, 
with an aching heart, and tears actually came into his 
eyes. Father Fyodor felt sorry for him. 

“You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame,” 
he said, but not so sternly and heatedly as before. 
‘“ Tf you could beget him, you ought to know how to 
instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his 
childhood; it’s no good trying to correct a student.” 

A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands 
and said with a sigh: 

‘“ But you know I shall have to answer for him! ”’ 

‘To be sure you will!” 

After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and 
sighed at the same moment and asked: 


38 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘Who is reading the ‘ Acts’?”’ 

‘““Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them.” 

The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at 
his Reverence, asked: 

‘“ Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?” 

‘“Do as you please; you are his father, not I. 
You ought to know best.” 

“T don’t know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell 
me what to do, for goodness’ sake! Would you 
believe it, I am sick at heart! I can’t sleep now, 
nor keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to 
me. ‘Tell me what to do, Father Fyodor!” 

‘‘ Write him a letter.” 

“What am I to write to him?” 

‘Write that he mustn’t go on like that. Write 
shortly, but sternly and circumstantially, without soft- 
ening or smoothing away his guilt. It is your pa- 
rental duty; if you write, you will have done your 
duty and will be at peace.” 

‘“That’s true. But what am I to write to him, to 
what effect? If I write to him, he will answer, 
‘Why? what for? Why is it a sin?’”’ 

Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and 
brandished his fingers. 

‘Why? what for? why is it a sin?”’ he began 
shrilly. ‘‘ I was once confessing a gentleman, and I 
told him that excessive confidence in the Divine 
Miercy is a /sinis) and) /hel/asked», (| Why/?);))))Litried to 
answer him, but ’» Anastasy slapped himself 
on the forehead. ‘I had nothing here. He-he-he- 
heave) 

Anastasy’s words, his hoarse jangling laugh at 
what was not laughable, had an unpleasant effect 





Wine Lerter 39 


on his Reverence and on the deacon. The former 
was on the point of saying, ‘‘ Don’t interfere ”’ again, 
but he did not say it, he only frowned. 

‘““T can’t write to him,” sighed the deacon. 

‘““ Tf you can’t, who can? ”’ 

“Father Fyodor!” said the deacon, putting his 
head on one side and pressing his hand to his heart. 
‘“T am an uneducated slow-witted man, while the 
Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. 
You know everything and understand everything. 
You can master anything, while I don’t know how 
to put my words together sensibly. Be generous. 
Instruct me how to write the letter. Teach me what 
to say and how to say it... .” 

‘What is there to teach? There is nothing to 
teach. Sit down and write.” 

‘“Oh, do me the favour, Father Fyodor! I be- 
seech you! I know he will be frightened and will 
attend to your letter, because, you see, you are a 
cultivated man too. Dobe so good! I'll sit down, 
and you'll dictate to me. It will be a sin to write 
to-morrow, but now would be the very time; my 
mind would be set at rest.” 

His Reverence looked at the deacon’s imploring 
face, thought of the disagreeable Pyotr, and con- 
sented to dictate. He made the deacon sit down to 
his table and began. 

“Well, write . . . ‘Christ is risen, dear son 
. .. exclamation mark. ‘ Rumours have reached 
me, your father,’ then in parenthesis, ‘from what 
source is no concern of yours . . .’ close the paren- 
thesis. . . . Have you written it? ‘ that you are lead- 
ing a life inconsistent with the laws both of God 


40 The Tales of Chekhov 


and of man. Neither the luxurious comfort, nor the 
worldly splendour, nor the culture with which you 
seek outwardly to disguise it, can hide your heathen 
manner of life. In name you are a Christian, but in 
your real nature a heathen as pitiful and wretched 
as all other heathens — more wretched, indeed, see- 
ing that those heathens who know not Christ are lost 
from ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing 
a treasure, you neglect it. I will not enumerate here 
your vices, which you know well enough; I will say 
that I see the cause of your ruin in your infidelity. 
You imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your 
knowledge of science, but refuse to see that science 
without faith, far from elevating a man, actually de- 
grades him to the level of a lower animal, inasmuch 
as...” The whole letter was in this strain. 

When he had finished writing it the deacon read it 
aloud, beamed all over and jumped up. 

“It’s a gift, it’s really a gift!” he said, clasping 
his hands and looking enthusiastically at his Rever- 
ence. ‘‘ To think of the Lord’s bestowing a gift 
like that! Eh? Holy Mother! I do believe I 
couldn’t write a letter like that in a hundred years. 
Lord save you!” 

Father Anastasy was enthusiastic too. 

“One couldn’t write like that without a gift,” 
he said, getting up and wagging his fingers — “ that 
one couldn’t! His rhetoric would trip any philoso- 
pher and shut him up. Intellect! Brilliant intel- 
lect! If you weren’t married, Father Fyodor, you 
would have been a bishop long ago, you would 
really)" 

Having vented his wrath in a letter, his Rever- 


Whe) Letter 41 


ence felt relieved; his fatigue and exhaustion came 
back to him. The deacon was an old friend, and his 
Reverence did not hesitate to say to him: 

‘Well, deacon, go, and God bless you. I'll have 
half an hour’s nap on the sofa; I must rest.” 

The deacon went away and took Anastasy with 
him. As is always the case on Easter Eve, it was 
dark in the street, but the whole sky was sparkling 
with bright luminous stars. There was a scent of 
spring and holiday in the soft still air. 

“How long was he dictating?” the deacon said 
admiringly. ‘“*’Ten minutes, not more! It would 
have taken someone else a month to compose such 
a letter. Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that 
I don’t know what to call it! It’s a marvel! It’s 
really a marvel!” 

“Education! ”’ sighed Anastasy as he crossed the 
muddy street, holding up his cassock to his waist. 
“It’s not for us to compare ourselves with him. 
We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a 
learned education. Yes, he’s a real man, there is no 
denying that.” 

“And you listen how he’ll read the Gospel in 
Latin at mass to-day! He knows Latin and he 
knows Greek. . . . Ah, Petrushka, Petrushka! ” the 
deacon said, suddenly remembering. ‘“‘ Now that 
will make him scratch his head! That will shut his 
mouth, that will bring it home to him! Now he 
won't ask ‘Why.’ It is a case of one wit to outwit 
another! Ha-ha-ha!” 

The deacon laughed gaily and loudly. Since the 
letter had been written to Pyotr he had become serene 
and more cheerful. The consciousness of having 


42 The Tales of Chekhov 


performed his duty as a father and his faith in the 
power of the letter had brought back his mirthfulness 
and good-humour. 

‘“ Pyotr means a stone,” said he, as he went into 
his house. ‘“‘ My Pyotr is not a stone, but a rag. 
A viper has fastened upon him and he pampers her, 
and hasn’t the pluck to kick her out. Tfoo! To 
think there should be women like that, God forgive 
me! Eh? Has she no shame? She has fastened 
upon the lad, sticking to him, and keeps him tied to 
her apron-strings. . . . Fie upon her!” 

‘ Perhaps it’s not she keeps hold of him, but he 
of her?’ 

“She is a shameless one anyway! Not that I 
am) defending) Pyotr.) )\.).\ Fle ll catch it) Ete ll 
read the letter and scratch his head! WHe’ll burn 
with shame! ”’ 

“It’s a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn’t 
send it, Father Deacon. Let him alone.” 

“What!” said the deacon, disconcerted. 

“Why. . . . Don’t send it, deacon! What’s the 
sense of it? Suppose you send it; he reads it, and 

. and what then? You'll only upset him. For- 
give him. Let him alone! ”’ 

The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy’s dark 
face, at his unbuttoned cassock, which looked in the 
dusk like wings, and shrugged his shoulders. 

“How can I forgive him like that?’ he asked. 
“Why, I shall have to answer for him to God! ” 

“Even so, forgive him all the same. Really! 
And God will forgive you for your kindness to him.” 

‘But he is my son, isn’t he? Ought I not to 
teach him? ”’ 


b] 


The’ Letter 43 


“Teach him? Of course —why not? You can 
teach him, but why call him a heathen? It will 
hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . .” 

The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little 
house with three windows. His elder sister, an old 
maid, looked after his house for him, though she 
had three years before lost the use of her legs and 
was confined to her bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed 
her, and did nothing without her advice. Father 
Anastasy went in with him. Seeing the table already 
laid with Easter cakes and red eggs, he began weep- 
ing for some reason, probably thinking of his own 
home, and to turn these tears into a jest, he at once 


laughed huskily. 
“Yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast,” he 
said. ‘“‘Yes ... it wouldn’t come amiss, deacon, 


to have a little glass now. Can we? [Il drink it 
so that the old lady does not hear,” he whispered, 
glancing sideways towards the door. 

Without a word the deacon moved a decanter and 
wineglass towards him. He unfolded the letter and 
began reading it aloud. And now the letter pleased 
him just as much as when his Reverence had dictated 
itto him. He beamed with pleasure and wagged his 
head, as though he had been tasting something very 
sweet. 

‘ A-ah, what a letter! ’’ he said. ‘‘ Petrushka has 
never dreamt of such a letter. It’s just what he 
wants, something to throw him into a fever. . . .” 


‘“Do you know, deacon, don’t send it!” said 
Anastasy, pouring himself out a second glass of 
vodka as though unconsciously. ‘‘ Forgive him; let 


him alone! I am telling you ... what I really 


44 The Tales of Chekhov 


think. If his own father can’t forgive him, who 
will forgive him? And so he’ll live without forgive- 
ness. ‘Think, deacon: there will be plenty to chastise 
him without you; but you should look out for some 
who! will, ’show mercy toiyour ison!) hth) 

. sshave just one more,))) Che last, old)man:).)4) 
Just sit down and write straight off to him, ‘ I forgive 
you, Pyotr!’ He will under-sta-and! He will fe-el 
it! I understand it from myself, you see, old man 

. deacon, I mean. When I lived like other 
people, I hadn’t much to trouble about, but now since 
I lost the image and semblance, there is only one 
thing I care about, that good people should forgive 
me. And, remember, too, it’s not the righteous but 
sinners we must forgive. Why should you forgive 
your old woman if she is not sinful? No, you must 
forgive a man when he is a sad sight to look at .. . 
Ves 

Anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into 
thought. 

‘“Tt’s a terrible thing, deacon,” he sighed, evi- 
dently struggling with the desire to take another 
glass — ‘“‘a terrible thing! In sin my mother bore 
me, in sin I have lived, in sin I shall die. . . . God 
forgive me, a sinner! I have gone astray, deacon! 
There is no salvation for me! And it’s not as 
though I had gone astray in my life, but in old age — 
at death 'sidoon esi. itiy, 

The old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off 
another glass, then got up and moved to another 
seat. The deacon, still keeping the letter in his 
hand, was walking up and down the room. He 
was thinking of his son. Displeasure, distress and 


The Letter A5 


anxiety no longer troubled him; all that had gone 
into the letter. Now he was simply picturing Pyotr; 
he imagined his face, he thought of past years when 
his son used to come to stay with him for the holi- 
days. His thoughts were only of what was good, 
warm, touching, of which one might think for a 
whole lifetime without wearying. Longing for his 
son, he read the letter through once more and looked 
questioningly at Anastasy. 

‘Don’t send it,” said the latter, with a wave of 
his hand. 

‘No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring 
him to his senses a little, all the same. It’s just as 
yee aa al? 

The deacon took an envelope from the table, but 
before putting the letter into it he sat down to the 
table, smiled and added on his own account at the 
bottom of the letter: 

‘‘ They have sent us a new inspector. He’s much 
friskier than the old one. He’s a great one for 
dancing and talking, and there’s nothing he can’t 
do, so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over 
him. Our military chief, Kostyrev, will soon get 
the sack too, they say. High time he did!’ And 
very well pleased, without the faintest idea that with 
this postscript he had completely spoiled the stern 
letter, the deacon addressed the envelope and laid it 
in the most conspicuous place on the table. 





EASTER EVE 





EASTER EVE 


I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, 
waiting for the ferry-boat from the other side. At 
ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of 
moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering 
from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay 
stretched out before me. The waters of spring, run- 
ning riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded 
both sides of the river for a long distance, submerg- 
ing vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that 
it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes 
sticking out above the surface of the water and 
looking in the darkness like grim solitary crags. 
The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was 
dark, yet I could see the trees, the water and the 
people. . . . The world was lighted by the stars, 
which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I 
don’t remember ever seeing so many stars. Liter- 
ally one could not have put a finger in between them. 
There were some as big as a goose’s egg, others tiny 
as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the festi- 
val procession, every one of them, little and big, 
washed, renewed and joyful, and every one of them 
was softly twinkling its beams. The sky was re- 
flected in the water; the stars were bathing in its 
dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. 
The air was warm and still. . . . Here and there, 
far away on the further bank in the impenetrable 
49 


50 The Tales of Chekhov 


darkness, several bright red lights were gleam- 
ieee 

A couple of paces from me I saw the dark 
silhouette of a peasant in a high hat, with a thick 
knotted stick in his hand. 

‘“‘ How long the ferry-boat is in coming!” I said. 

“Tt is time it was here,”’ the silhouette answered. 

“You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?” 

‘“No, I am not,” yawned the peasant — “I am 
waiting for the illumination. I should have gone, 
but, to tell you the truth, I haven’t the five kopecks 
for the ferry.” 

‘ll give you the five kopecks.”’ 

“No: I*humbly thank you.).: .... With thatifive 
kopecks put up a candle for me over there in the 
monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and 
I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat, 
as though it had sunk in the water!” 

The peasant went up to the water’s edge, took the 
rope in his hands, and shouted: “Ieronim! leron 
—im!” 

As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal 
of a great bell floated across from the further bank. 
The note was deep and low, as from the thickest 
string of a double bass; it seemed as though the 
darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. At once 
there was the sound of a cannon shot. It rolled 
away in the darkness and ended somewhere in the 
far distance behind me. ‘The peasant took off his 
hat and crossed himself. 

‘“‘ Christ is risen,’ he said. 

Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell 
had time to die away in the air a second sounded, 


Easter Eve 51 


after it at once a third, and the darkness was filled 
with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the red 
lights fresh lights flashed, and all began moving to- 
gether and twinkling restlessly. 

‘Teron —im!” we heard a hollow prolonged 
shout. 

‘They are shouting from the other bank,” said 
the peasant, “so there is no ferry there either. Our 
Ieronim has gone to sleep.” 

The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew 
one towards them. . . . I was already beginning to 
lose patience and grow anxious, but behold at last, 
staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline of 
something very much like a gibbet. It was the long- 
expected ferry. It moved towards us with such de- 
liberation that if it had not been that its lines grew 
gradually more definite, one might have supposed 
that it was standing still or moving to the other bank. 

‘“Make haste! Ieronim!’’ shouted my peasant. 
“The gentleman’s tired of waiting! ” 

The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and 
stopped with a creak. A tall man in a monk’s 
cassock and a conical cap stood on it, holding the 
rope. 

‘Why have you been so long?” I asked, jumping 
upon the ferry. 

‘“’ Forgive me, for Christ’s sake,’ Ieronim an- 
swered gently. ‘Is there no one else?” 

pelovonet) 23.” 

Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, 
bent himself to the figure of a mark of interrogation, 
and gasped. ‘The ferry-boat creaked and gave a 
lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat 


G2 The Tales of Chekhov 


began slowly retreating from me — so the ferry was 
moving off. lJeronim soon drew himself up and 
began working with one hand only. We were silent, 
gazing towards the bank to which we were floating. 
There the illumination for which the peasant was 
waiting had begun. At the water’s edge barrels of 
tar were flaring like huge camp fires. Their reflec- 
tions, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us 
in long broad streaks. ‘The burning barrels lighted 
up their own smoke and the long shadows of men 
flitting about the fire; but further to one side and 
behind them from where the velvety chime floated 
there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All 
at once, cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged 
in a golden ribbon up the sky; it described an arc 
and, as though broken to pieces against the sky, was 
scattered crackling into sparks. ‘There was a roar 
from the bank like a far-away hurrah. 

‘’ How beautiful!” I said. 

‘Beautiful beyond words!” sighed Ieronim. 
“Such a night, sir! Another time one would pay 
no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one rejoices 
in every vanity. Where do you come from?” 

I told him where I came from. 

Ni ombelsure\\aivalpovtul day to-day auenen 
Ieronim went on in a weak sighing tenor like the 
voice of a convalescent. ‘‘ The sky is rejoicing and 
the earth, and what is under the earth. All the 
creatures are keeping holiday. Only tell me, kind 
sir, why, even in the time of great rejoicing, a man 
cannot forget his sorrows? ”’ 

I fancied that this unexpected question was to 
draw me into one of those endless religious conversa- 


Easter Eve 53 


tions which bored and idle monks are so fond of. 
I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only asked: 

‘What sorrows have you, father?” 

*“ As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, 
but to-day a special sorrow has happened in the 
monastery: at mass, during the reading of the Bible, 
the monk and deacon Nikolay died.”’ 

“Well, it’s God’s will!’ I said, falling into the 
monastic tone. “‘ We must all die. To my mind, 
you ought to rejoice indeed. . . . They say if any- 
one dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom of 
heaven.” 

© That's true.” 

We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant 
in the high hat melted into the lines of the bank. 
The tar barrels were flaring up more and more. 

‘The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity 
of sorrow, and so does reflection,’ said Ieronim, 
breaking the silence; “‘ but why does the heart grieve 
and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want 
to weep bitterly?” 

Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and 
said quickly: 

“If I died, or anyone else, it would not be worth 
notice, perhaps; but, you see, Nikolay is dead! No 
one else but Nikolay! Indeed, it’s hard to believe 
that he is no more! [I stand here on my ferry-boat 
and every minute I keep fancying that he will lift up 
his voice from the bank. He always used to come 
to the bank and call to me that I might not be afraid 
on the ferry. He used to get up from his bed at 
night on purpose for that. He was a kind soul. 
My God! how kindly and gracious! Many a 


54 The Tales of Chekhov 


mother is not so good to her child as Nikolay was 
tome! Lord, save his soul! ”’ 

Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me 
again at once. 

‘““ And such a lofty intelligence, your honour,” he 
said in a vibrating voice. ‘‘ Such a sweet and har- 
monious tongue! Just as they will sing immediately 
at early matins: ‘Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy 
Voice!’ Besides all other human qualities, he had, 
too, an extraordinary gift!” 

“What gift?” I asked. 

The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had 
convinced himself that he could trust me with a 
secret, he laughed good-humouredly. 

‘He had a gift for writing hymns of praise,” he 
paid.) ("It was a marvel, sir; you couldnit callit 
anything else! You will be amazed if I tell you 
about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from 
Moscow, the Father Sub-Prior studied at the Kazan 
academy, we have wise monks and elders, but, would 
you believe it, no one could write them; while Niko- 
lay, a simple monk, a deacon, had not studied any- 
where, and had not even any outer appearance of it, 
but he wrote them! A marvel! a real marvel!” 
Ieronim clasped his. hands and, completely forgetting 
the rope, went on eagerly: 

‘The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in com- 
posing sermons; when he wrote the history of the 
monastery he worried all the brotherhood and drove 
a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote canticles ! 
Hymns of praise! ‘That’s a very different thing 
from a sermon or a history! ” 

“Ts it difficult to write them? ”’ I asked. 


Easter Eve 5 


‘“There’s great dificulty!’’ JIeronim wagged his 
head. ‘‘ You can do nothing by wisdom and holiness 
if God has not given you the gift. The monks who 
don’t understand argue that you only need to know 
the life of the saint for whom you are writing the 
hymn, and to make it harmonize with the other 
hymns of praise. But that’s a mistake, sir. Of 
course, anyone who writes canticles must know the 
life of the saint to perfection, to the least trivial de- 
tail. To be sure, one must make them harmonize 
with the other canticles and know where to begin 
and what to write about. To give you an instance, 
the first response begins everywhere with ‘the 
chosen’ or ‘the elect.’ . . . The first line must al- 
ways begin with the ‘angel.’ In the canticle of 
praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, if you are interested 
in the subject, it begins like this: ‘ Of angels Cre- 
ator and Lord of all powers!’ In the canticle to 
the Holy Mother of God: ‘ Of angels the foremost 
sent down from on high,’ to Nikolay, the Wonder- 
worker — ‘an angel in semblance, though in sub- 
stance a man,’ and so on. Everywhere you begin 
with the angel. Of course, it would be im- 
possible without making them harmonize, but the 
lives of the saints and conformity with the others 
is not what matters; what matters is the beauty and 
sweetness of it. Everything must be harmonious, 
brief and complete. There must be in every line 
softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word 
should be harsh or rough or unsuitable. It must be 
written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart 
and weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown 
into a tremor. In the canticle to the Holy Mother 


56 The Tales of Chekhov 


are the words: ‘Rejoice, O Thou too high for 
human thought to reach! Rejoice, O Thou too deep 
for angels’ eyes to fathom!’ In another place in the 
same canticle: ‘Rejoice, O tree that bearest the 
fair fruit of light that is the food of the faithful! 
Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under 
which there is shelter for multitudes!’ ” 

Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though fright- 
ened at something or overcome with shame, and 
shook his head. 

“Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light... 
tree of gracious spreading shade, . . .” he muttered. 
“To think that a man should find words like those! 
Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity he 
packs many thoughts into one phrase, and how 
smooth and complete it all is! ‘ Light-radiating 
torch to all that be . . .’ comes in the canticle to 
Jesus the Most Sweet. ‘ Light-radiating!’ There 
is no such word in conversation or in books, but you 
see he invented it, he found it in his mind! Apart 
from the smoothness and grandeur of language, sir, 
every line must be beautified in every way; there 
must be flowers and lightning and wind and sun and 
all the objects of the visible world. And every ex- 
clamation ought to be put so as to be smooth and 
easy for the ear. ‘ Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly 
growth!’ comes in the hymn to Nikolay the Wonder- 
worker. It’s not simply ‘heavenly flower,’ but 
‘ flower of heavenly growth.’ It’s smoother so and 
sweet to the ear. That was just as Nikolay wrote 
it! exactly like that! I can’t tell you how he used to 
write!” 

“Well, in that case it is a pity he is dead,” I 


Easter Eve a7 


said; “but let us get on, father, or we shall be 
fate.’ 

Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were 
beginning to peal all the bells. Probably the pro- 
cession was already going on near the monastery, for 
all the dark space behind the tar barrels was now © 
dotted with moving lights. 

‘Did Nikolay print his hymns? ”’ I asked Ieronim. 

‘“‘ How could he print them?” he sighed. ‘“* And, 
indeed, it would be strange to print them. What 
would be the object? No one in the monastery takes 
any interest in them. They don’t like them. They 
knew Nikolay wrote them, but they let it pass un- 
noticed. No one esteems new writings nowadays, 
cin!” 

“Were they prejudiced against him?” 

“Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder per- 
haps the brethren would have been interested, but he 
wasn’t forty, you know. There were some who 
laughed and even thought his writing a sin.” 

‘““ What did he write them for?” 

“Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the broth- 
erhood, I was the only one who read his hymns. I 
used to go to him in secret, that no one else might 
know of it, and he was glad that I took an interest 
in them. He would embrace me, stroke my head, 
speak to me in caressing words as to a little child. 
He would shut his cell, make me sit down beside him, 
and begin to read. . . .” 

Ieronim left the rope and came up to me. 

‘We were dear friends in a way,” he whispered, 
looking at me with shining eyes. ‘‘ Where he went 
I would go. If I were not there he would miss me. 


58 The Tales of Chekhov 


And he cared more for me than for anyone, and all 
because I used to weep over his hymns. It makes 
me sadtoremember. Now I feel just like an orphan 
or a widow. You know, in our monastery they are 
all good people, kind and pious, but . . . there is no 
one with softness and refinement, they are just like 
peasants. They all speak loudly, and tramp heavily 
when they walk; they are noisy, they clear their 
throats, but Nikolay always talked softly, caress- 
ingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or 
praying he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His 
face was tender, compassionate. .. .” 

Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the 
rope again. We were by now approaching the bank. 
We floated straight out of the darkness and stillness 
of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling 
smoke, crackling lights and uproar. By now one 
could distinctly see people moving near the tar 
barrels. The flickering of the lights gave a strange, 
almost fantastic, expression to their figures and red 
faces. From time to time one caught among the 
heads and faces a glimpse of a horse’s head motion- 
less as though cast in copper. 

“They'll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, 

.” said Ieronim, “‘ and Nikolay is gone; there is 
noone to appreciate it.) ..:.) Phere’ was’ nothing 
written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to 
take in every word! You'll be there, sir, so notice 
what is sung; it takes your breath away!” 

‘’ Won't you be in church, then? ” 

Vabveanits)\.. Ci haven toy wenkithes herve teat 
‘‘ But won’t they relieve you?” 

““T don’t know. . . . I ought to have been re- 


Easter Eve 59 


lieved at eight; but, as you see, they don’t come! . . . 
And I must own I should have liked to be in the 
Cirehe 5" 

“ Are you a monk?” 

© Ves)... thatis, | ama lay brother: | 

The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust — 
a five kopeck piece into Ieronim’s hand for taking me 
across, and jumped on land. Immediately a cart 
with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking 
onto the ferry. Ileronim, with a faint glow from the 
lights on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to 
ieana started the ferry back.) 2). 

I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther 
walked on a soft freshly trodden path. This path 
led to the dark monastery gates, that looked like a 
cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a dis- 
orderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts 
and chaises. All this crowd was rattling, snorting, 
laughing, and the crimson light and wavering 
shadows from the smoke flickered over it all... . 
A perfect chaos! And in this subbub the people yet 
found room to load a little cannon and to sell cakes. 
There was no less commotion on the other side of the 
wall in the monastery precincts, but there was more 
regard for decorum and order. Here there was a 
smell of juniper and incense. ‘They talked loudly, 
but there was no sound of laughter or snorting. 
Near the tombstones and crosses people pressed close 
to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their 
arms. Apparently many had come from a long dis- 
tance for their cakes to be blessed and now were 
exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a metallic 
sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs 


60 The Tales of Chekhov 


that paved the way from the monastery gates to 
the church door. They were busy and shouting on 
the belfry, too. 

“What a restless night!” I thought. ‘“ How 
nice!” 

One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleep- 
lessness in all nature, from the night darkness to the 
iron slabs, the crosses on the tombs and the trees 
under which the people were moving to and fro. 
But nowhere was the excitement and restlessness so 
marked as in the church. An unceasing struggle 
was going on in the entrance between the inflowing 
stream and the outflowing stream. Some were going 
in, others going out and soon coming back again to 
stand still for a little and begin moving again. 
People were scurrying from place to place, lounging 
about as though they were looking for something. 
The stream flowed from the entrance all round the 
church, disturbing even the front rows, where per- 
sons of weight and dignity were standing. There 
could be no thought of concentrated prayer. There 
were no prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, child- 
ishly irresponsible joy, seeking a pretext to break out 
and vent itself in some movement, even in senseless 
jostling and shoving. 

The same unaccustomed movement is striking in 
the Easter service itself. The altar gates are flung 
wide open, thick clouds of incense float in the air 
near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are 
lights, the gleam and splutter of candles... . 
There is no reading; restless and light-hearted sing- 
ing goes on to the end without ceasing. After each 
hymn the clergy change their vestments and come out 


Easter Eve 61 


to burn incense, which is repeated every ten min- 
utes. 

I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed 
from in front and forced me back. AA tall thick-set 
deacon walked before me with a long red candle; the 
grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre hur- 
ried after him with the censer. When they had 
vanished from sight the crowd squeezed me back to 
my former position. But ten minutes had not passed 
before a new wave burst on me, and again the deacon 
appeared. This time he was followed by the Father 
Sub-Prior, the man who, as Ieronim had told me, 
was writing the history of the monastery. 

As I mingled with the crowd and caught the in- 
fection of the universal joyful excitement, I felt un- 
bearably sore on Ieronim’s account. Why did they 
not send someone to relieve him? Why could not 
someone of less feeling and less susceptibility go on 
the ferry? ‘‘ Lift up thine eyes, O Sion, and look 
around,” they sang in the choir, ‘‘ for thy children 
have come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from 
north and south, and from east and from the 
HEED ONAN 

I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expres- 
sion of triumph, but not one was listening to what 
was being sung and taking it in, and not one was 
“holding his breath.” Why was not Ieronim re- 
leased? I could fancy Ieronim standing meekly 
somewhere by the wall, bending forward and hun- 
grily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All 
this that glided by the ears of people standing by 
me he would have eagerly drunk in with his delicately 
sensitive soul, and would have been spell-bound to 


62 The Tales of Chekhov 


ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there would not 
have been a man happier than he in all the church. 
Now he was plying to and fro over the dark river 
and grieving for his dead friend and brother. 

The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk, 
playing with his rosary and looking round behind 
him, squeezed sideways by me, making way for a 
lady in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant 
hurried after the lady, holding a chair over our 
heads. 

I came out of the church. I wanted to have a 
look at the dead Nikolay, the unknown canticle 
writer. I walked about the monastery wall, where 
there was a row of cells, peeped into several windows, 
and, seeing nothing, came back again. I do not 
regret now that I did not see Nikolay; God knows, 
perhaps if I had seen him I should have lost the 
picture my imagination paints for me now. I 
imagine that lovable poetical figure, solitary and not 
understood, who went out at nights to call to leronim 
over the water, and filled his hymns with flowers, 
stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man with soft, 
mild, melancholy features. His eyes must have 
shone, not only with intelligence, but with kindly 
tenderness and that hardly restrained childlike en- 
thusiasm which I could hear in Ieronim’s voice when 
he quoted to me passages from the hymns. 

When we came out of church after mass it was 
no longer night. The morning was _ beginning. 
The stars had gone out and the sky was a morose 
greyish blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and 
the buds on the trees were covered.with dew. There 


Easter Eve 63 


was a sharp freshness in the air. Outside the pre- 
cincts I did not find the same animated scene as I 
had beheld in the night. Horses and men looked 
exhausted, drowsy, scarcely moved, while nothing 
was left of the tar barrels but heaps of black ash. 
When anyone is exhausted and sleepy he fancies that 
nature, too, is in the same condition. It seemed to 
me that the trees and the young grass were asleep. 
It seemed as though even the bells were not pealing 
so loudly and gaily as at night. The restlessness was 
over, and of the excitement nothing was left but a 
pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth. 

Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint 
mist hovered over it in shifting masses. There was 
a harsh cold breath from the water. When I 
jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen 
men and women were standing on it already. The 
rope, wet and as I fancied drowsy, stretched far away 
across the broad river and in places disappeared in 
the white mist. 

» Christ is risen! Is there no one else?” asked a 
soft voice. 

I recognized the voice of Ieronim. ‘There was no 
darkness now to hinder me from seeing the monk. 
He was a tall narrow-shouldered man of five-and- 
thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed 
listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped 
beard. He had an extraordinarily sad and ex- 
hausted look. 

“They have not relieved you yet?” I asked in 
surprise. 

“Me?” he answered, turning to me his chilled 


64 The Tales of Chekhov 


and dewy face with a smile. ‘‘ There is no one to 
take my place now till morning. ‘They’ll all be going 
to the Father Archimandrite’s to break the fast di- 
mectly..3 

With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish 
fur that looked like the little wooden tubs in which 
honey is sold, he threw his weight on the rope; they 
gasped simultaneously, and the ferry started. 

We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily 
rising mist. Everyone was silent. Jeronim worked 
mechanically with one hand. He slowly passed his 
mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance rested on 
the rosy face of a young merchant’s wife with black 
eyebrows, who was standing on the ferry beside me 
silently shrinking from the mist that wrapped her 
about. He did not take his eyes off her face all the 
way. 

There was little that was masculine in that pro- 
longed gaze. It seemed to me that Ieronim was 
looking in the woman’s face for the soft and tender 
features of his dead friend. 


A NIGHTMARE 


4 























A NIGHTMARE 


KUNIN, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent 
member of the Rural Board, on returning from 
Petersburg to his district, Borisovo, immediately sent 
a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest there, 
Father Yakov Smirnov. 

Five hours later Father Yakov appeared. 

“Very glad to make your acquaintance,” said 
Kunin, meeting him in the entry. ‘“‘ I’ve been living 
and serving here for a year; it seems as though we 
ought to have been acquainted before. You are very 
welcome! But... how young you are!” Kunin 
added in surprise. ‘‘ What is your age?” 

‘““ Twenty-eight, . . .” said Father Yakov, faintly 
pressing Kunin’s outstretched hand, and for some 
reason turning crimson. 

Kunin led his visitor into his study and began look- 
ing at him more attentively. 

‘What an uncouth womanish face!’ he thought. 

There certainly was a good deal that was woman- 
ish in Father Yakov’s face: the turned-up nose, the 
bright red cheeks, and the large grey-blue eyes with 
scanty, scarcely perceptible eye-brows. His long 
reddish hair, smooth and dry, hung down in straight 
tails on to his shoulders. The hair on his upper 
lip was only just beginning to form into a real mascu- 
line moustache, while his little beard belonged to 


that class of good-for-nothing beards which among 
67 


68 The Tales of Chekhov 


divinity students are for some reason called “‘ tick- 
lers.”” It was scanty and extremely transparent; it 
could not have been stroked or combed, it could only 
have been pinched. . . . All these scanty decora- 
tions were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father 
Yakov, thinking to dress up as a priest and beginning 
to gum on the beard, had been interrupted halfway 
through. He had on a cassock, the colour of weak 
coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both 
elbows. 

‘A queer type,” thought Kunin, looking at his 
muddy skirts. ‘‘ Comes to the house for the first 
time and can’t dress decently. 

“Sit down, Father,” he began more carelessly 
than cordially, as he moved an easy-chair to the table. 
‘ Sit down, I beg you.” 

Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awk- 
wardly on to the edge of the chair, and laid his open 
hands on his knees. With his short figure, his nar- 
row chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from 
the first moment a most unpleasant impression on 
Kunin. The latter could never have imagined that 
there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests . 
in Russia; and in Father Yakov’s attitude, in the way 
he held his hands on his knees and sat on the very 
edge of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a 
shade of servility. 

“I have invited you on business, Father... . 
Kunin began, sinking back in his low chair. ‘It ha 
fallen to my lot to perform the agreeable duty of 
helping you in one of your useful undertakings. . . . 
On coming back from Petersburg, I found on my 
table a letter from the Marshal of Nobility. Yegor 


” 


A Nightmare 69 


Dmitrevitch suggests that I should take under my 
supervision the church parish school which is being 
opened in Sinkino. [ shall be very glad to, Father, 
with all my heart. . . . More than that, I accept 
the proposition with enthusiasm.” 

Kunin got up and walked about the study. 

‘Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably 
you, too, are aware that I have not great funds at my 
disposal. My estate is mortgaged, and I live exclu- 
sively on my salary as the permanent member. So 
that you cannot reckon on very much assistance, but I 
will do all that is in my power. . . . And when are 
you thinking of opening the school, Father? ”’ 

‘When we have the money, .. .”’ answered 
Father Yakov. 

‘You have some funds at your disposal already?” 

‘“Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their 
meeting that they would pay, every man of them, 
thirty kopecks a year; but that’s only a promise, you 
know! And for the first beginning we should need 
at least two hundred roubles. . . .” 

“M’yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum 
now,” said Kunin witha sigh. ‘I spent all I had on 
my tour and got into debt, too. Let us try and 
think of some plan together.” 

Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his 
views and watched Father Yakov’s face, seeking signs 
of agreement or approval in it. But the face was 
apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but 
constrained shyness and uneasiness. Looking at it, 
one might have supposed that Kunin was talking of 
matters so abstruse that Father Yakov did not under- 
stand and only listened from good manners, and was 


70 The Tales of Chekhov 


at the same time afraid of being detected in his fail- 
ure to understand. 

“The fellow is not one of the brightest, that’s 
evident . . .”. thought Kunin. “ He’s rather shy 
and much too stupid.” 

Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled 
only when the footman came into the study bringing 
in two glasses of tea on a tray and a cake-basket full 
of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking at 
once. 

‘‘ Shouldn‘t we write to the bishop?’ Kunin went 
on, meditating aloud. ‘‘ To be precise, you know, 
it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but the higher ecclesi- 
astical authorities, who have raised the question of 
the church parish schools. They ought really to 
apportion the funds. I remember I read that a sum 
of money had been set aside for the purpose. Do 
you know nothing about it?” 

Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that 
he did not answer this question at once. He lifted 
his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought a moment, and 
as though recalling his question, he shook his head 
in the negative. An expression of pleasure and of 
the most ordinary prosaic appetite overspread his 
face from ear to ear. He drank and smacked his 
lips over every gulp. When he had drunk it to the 
very last drop, he put his glass on the table, then took 
his glass back again, looked at the bottom of it, 
then put it back again. The expression of pleasure 
faded from his face. . . . Then Kunin saw his vis- 
itor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble a lit- 
tle bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hur- 
riedly stick it in his pocket. 


A Nightmare 7 


‘Well, that’s not at all clerical!’ thought Kunin, 
shrugging his shoulders contemptuously. ‘* What 
is it, priestly greed or childishness? ” 

After giving his visitor another glass of tea and 
seeing him to the entry, Kunin lay down on the sofa 
and abandoned himself to the unpleasant feeling in- 
duced in him by the visit of Father Yakov. 

‘““What a strange wild creature!” he thought. 
‘Dirty, untidy, coarse, stupid, and probably he 
drinks. . . . My God, and that’s a priest, a spiritual 
father! ‘That’s a teacher of the people! I can 
fancy the irony there must be in the deacon’s face 
when before every mass he booms out: ‘ Thy bless- 
ing, Reverend Father!’ A fine reverend Father! 
A reverend Father without a grain of dignity or 
breeding, hiding biscuits in his pocket like a school- 
boy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where were the bish- 
op’s eyes when he ordained a man like that? What 
can he think of the people if he gives them a teacher 
like that? One wants people here who... .” 

And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to 
be like. 

/ lf J were a priest, for instance. . » . An edu- 
cated priest fond of his work might do a great deal. 
. . . L should have had the school opened long ago. 
And the sermons? If the priest is sincere and is in- 
spired by love for his work, what wonderful rousing 
sermons he might give! ” 

Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing 
a sermon. A little later he sat down to the table 
and rapidly began writing. 

“ TI give it to that red-haired fellow; let him read 
Moin church, . .” he thought. 


72 The Tales of Chekhov 


The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sink- 
ino in the morning to settle the question of the school, 
and while he was there to make acquaintance with 
the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite of 
the awful state of the roads, it was a glorious morn- 
ing. ‘I'he sun was shining brightly and cleaving with 
its rays the layers of white snow still lingering here 
and there. The snow as it took leave of the earth 
glittered with such diamonds that it hurt the eyes 
to look, while the young winter corn was hastily 
thrusting up its green beside it. The rooks floated 
with dignity over the fields. A rook would fly, drop 
to earth, and give several hops before standing firmly 
On its feet.) 2)... 

The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was 
old and grey; the columns of the porch had once 
been painted white, but the colour had now com- 
pletely peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly 
shafts. The ikon over the door looked like a dark 
smudged blur. But its poverty touched and soft- 
ened Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes, he went 
into the church and stood by the door. The service 
had only just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a 
bow, was reading the “‘ Hours ”’ in a hollow indistinct 
tenor. Father Yakov, who conducted the service 
without a deacon, was walking about the church, 
burning incense. Had it not been for the softened 
mood in which Kunin found himself on entering the 
poverty-stricken church, he certainly would have 
smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short 
priest was wearing a crumpled and extremely long 
robe of some shabby yellow material; the hem of the 
robe trailed on the ground. 


A Nightmare 73 


The church was not full. Looking at the parish- 
loners, Kunin was struck at the first glance by one 
strange circumstance: he saw nothing but old people 
and children. . . . Where were the men of working 
age? Where was the youth and manhood? But 
after he had stood there a little and looked more at- 
tentively at the aged-looking faces, Kunin saw that 
he had mistaken young people for old. He did not, 
however, attach any significance to this little optical 
illusion. 

The church was as cold and grey inside as out- 
side. There was not one spot on the ikons nor on 
the dark brown walls which was not begrimed and 
defaced by time. There were many windows, but 
the general effect of colour was grey, and so it was 
twilight in the church. 

‘Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well,” 
thought Kunin. ‘“‘ Just as in St. Peter’s in Rome one 
is impressed by grandeur, here one is touched by 
the lowliness and simplicity.” 

But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon 
as Father Yakov went up to the altar and began 
mass. Being still young and having come straight 
from the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father 
Yakov had not yet formed a set manner of celebrat- 
ing the service. As he read he seemed to be vacil- 
lating between a high tenor and a thin bass; he bowed 
clumsily, walked quickly, and opened and shut the 
gates abruptly. . . . The old sacristan, evidently 
deaf and ailing, did not hear the prayers very dis- 
tinctly, and this very often led to slight misunder- 
standings. Before Father Yakov had time to finish 
what he had to say, the sacristan began chanting his 


74 The Tales of Chekhov 


response, or else long after Father Yakov had fin- 
ished the old man would be straining his ears, listen- 
ing in the direction of the altar and saying nothing 
till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a sickly 
hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp... . 
The complete lack of dignity and decorum was em- 
phasized by a very small boy who seconded the 
sacristan and whose head was hardly visible over 
the railing of the choir. ‘The boy sang in a shrill 
falsetto and seemed to be trying to avoid singing in 
tune. Kunin stayed a little while, listened and went 
out for a smoke. He was disappointed, and looked 
at the grey church almost with dislike. 

‘They complain of the decline of religious feel- 
ing among the people, . . .” he sighed. “I should 
rather think so! They'd better foist a few more 
priests like this one on them!” 

Kunin went back into the church three times, and 
each time he felt a great temptation to get out into 
the open air again. Waiting till the end of the mass, 
he went to Father Yakov’s. ‘The priest’s house did 
not differ outwardly from the peasants’ huts, but the 
thatch lay more smoothly on the roof and there were 
little white curtains in the windows. Father Yakov 
led Kunin into a light little room with a clay floor and 
walls covered with cheap paper; in spite of some 
painful efforts towards luxury in the way of photo- 
graphs in frames, and a clock with a pair of scissors 
hanging on the weight the furnishing of the room im- 
pressed him by its scantiness. Looking at the furni- 
ture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov 
had gone from house to house and collected it in bits; 
in one place they had given him a round three- 


A Nightmare 75 


legged table, in another a stool, in a third a chair 
with a back bent violently backwards; in a fourth a 
chair with an upright back, but the seat smashed in; 
while in a fifth they had been liberal and given him 
a semblance of a sofa with a flat back and a lattice- 
work seat. ‘This semblance had been painted dark 
red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin meant at 
first to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second 
thought he sat down on the stool. 

“This is the first time you have been to our 
church?” asked Father Yakov, hanging his hat on a 
huge misshapen nail. 

“Yes, it is. I tell you what, Father, before we 
begin on business, will you give me some tea? My 
soul is parched.” 

Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind 
the partition wall. There was a sound of whisper- 
ing. 
‘“With his wife, I suppose,” thought Kunin; “ it 
would be interesting to see what the red-headed fel- 
low’s wife is like.” 

A little later Father Yakov came back, red and 
perspiring, and with an effort to smile, sat down on 
the edge of the sofa. 

“They will heat the samovar directly,” he said, 
without looking at his visitor. 

‘“ My goodness, they have not heated the samovar 
yet!’’ Kunin thought with horror. ‘A nice time 
we shall have to wait.” 

‘“‘T have brought you,” he said, “‘ the rough draft 
of the letter I have written to the bishop. I'll read 
it after tea; perhaps you may find something to 
adda) 127 


76 The Tales of Chekhov 


“ Very well.” 

A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive 
glances at the partition wall, smoothed his hair, and 
blew his nose. 

“It’s wonderful weather, . . .” he said. 

“Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday, 

. the Volsky Zemstvo have decided to give their 
schools to the clergy, that’s typical.” 

Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay 
floor, began to give expression to his reflections. 

“That would be all right,” he said, “if only the 
clergy were equal to their high calling and recognized 
their tasks. I am so unfortunate as to know priests 
whose standard of culture and whose moral quali- 
ties make them hardly fit to be army secretaries, much 
less priests. You will agree that a bad teacher does 
far less harm than a bad priest.” 

Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting 
bent up, thinking intently about something and ap- 
parently not listening to his visitor. 

“Yasha, come here!’’ a woman’s voice called 
from behind the partition. Father Yakov started 
and went out. Again a whispering began. 

Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea. 

‘No; it’s no use my waiting for tea here,’ he 
thought, looking at his watch. ‘‘ Besides, I fancy I 
am not altogether a welcome visitor. My host has 
not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and 
blinks.”’ 

Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov 
to return, and said good-bye to him. 

‘I have simply wasted the morning,” he thought 
wrathfully on the way home. ‘The blockhead! 


A Nightmare rig 


The dummy! He cares no more about the school 
than I about last year’s snow. . . . No, I shall never 
get anything done with him! We are bound to fail! 
If the Marshal knew what the priest here was like, 
he wouldn’t be in such a hurry to talk about a school. 
We ought first to try and get a decent priest, and 
then think about the school.” 

By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The 
man, his pitiful, grotesque figure in the long crum- 
pled robe, his womanish face, his manner of officiat- 
ing, his way of life and his formal restrained respect- 
fulness, wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling 
which was stored away in a warm corner of Kunin’s 
heart together with his nurse’s other fairy tales. 
The coldness and lack of attention with which Father 
Yakov had met Kunin’s warm and sincere interest 
in what was the priest’s own work was hard for the 
former’s vanity to endure. . . . 

On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long 
time walking about his rooms and thinking. Then 
he sat down to the table resolutely and wrote a letter 
tc the bishop. After asking for money and a bless- 
ing for the school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, 
his opinion of the priest at Sinkino. “ He is young,” 
he wrote, “ insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy, an 
intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the 
ideals which the Russian people have in the course 
of centuries formed of what a pastor should be.” 

After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, 
and went to bed with the consciousness that he had 
done a good deed. 

On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he 
was informed that Father Yakov had arrived. He 


, 78 The Tales of Chekhov 


did not want to get up, and instructed the servant to 
say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away 
to a sitting of the Board, and when he returned on 
Saturday he was told by the servants that Father 
Yakov had called every day in his absence. 

‘‘ He liked my biscuits, it seems,” he thought. 

Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov ar- 
rived. This time not only his skirts, but even his 
hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on his first 
visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on 
the edge of his chair as he had done then. Kunin 
determined not to talk about the school — not to 
cast pearls. 

‘‘ T have brought you a list of books for the school, 
Pavel Mihailovitch, . . .” Father Yakov began. 

i hank vou.’ 

But everything showed that Father Yakov had 
come for something else besides the list. His whole 
figure was expressive of extreme embarrassment, and 
at the same time there was a look of determination 
upon his face, as on the face of a man suddenly 
inspired by an idea. He struggled to say some- 
thing important, absolutely necessary, and strove to 
overcome his timidity. 

‘Why is he dumb?” Kunin thought wrathfully. 
‘ He’s settled himself comfortably! I haven’t time 
to be bothered with him.” 

To smooth over the awkwardness of his silence 
and to conceal the struggle going on within him, the 
priest began to smile constrainedly, and this slow 
smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out 
of keeping with the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, 
made Kunin turn away. He felt moved to repulsion. 


A Nightmare 79 


‘“‘ Excuse me, Father, I have to go out,” he said. 

Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has 
been struck a blow, and, still smiling, began in his con- 
fusion wrapping round him the skirts of his cassock. 
In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin felt 
suddenly sorry for him, and he wanted to soften his 
cruelty. 

‘“ Please come another time, Father,” he said, 
‘“ and before we part I want to ask you a favour. I 
was somehow inspired to write two sermons the 
other day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. 
If they are suitable, use them.” 

‘Very good,” said Father Yakov, laying his open 
hand on Kunin’s sermons which were lying on the 
tiple.) li will'take them.” 

After standing a little, hesitating and still wrap- 
ping his cassock round him, he suddenly gave up the 
effort to smile and lifted his head resolutely. 

“Pavel Mihailovitch,” he said, evidently trying 
to speak loudly and distinctly. 

‘“ What can I do for you?” 

nel have heard that: you... ., er. . 2 /hayejdis- 
missed your secretary, and . . . and are looking for 
amew one. ....” 

~ Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to 
recommend? ” 

el we MeL Y's VOU. SEE 0) A a Coukda you 
not give the post to me?” 

“Why, are you giving up the Church?” said 
Kunin in amazement. 

“No, no,” Father Yakov brought out quickly, 
for some reason turning pale and trembling all over. 


““God forbid! If you feel doubtful, then never 


SO The Tales of Chekhov 


mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work 
between whiles, . . . so as to increase my income. 
. . . Never mind, don’t disturb yourself! ”’ 

CURD m0 i.\hyour Vinconien. 4) (Bib ayeun kale, 
I only pay my secretary twenty roubles a month.” 

“Good heavens! I would take ten,’ whispered 
Father Yakov, looking about him. ‘“ Ten would be 
enough! You .. . you are astonished, and every- 
one is astonished. ‘The greedy priest, the grasping 
priest, what does he do with his money? I feel my- 
self I am greedy, . . . and I blame myself, I con- 
demn myself. . . . I am ashamed to look people in 
the \face.\).\:.). I tell 'you on my ‘conscience,’ Pavel 
Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to wit- 
TESS A taN 1 

Father Yakov took breath and went on: 

“On the way here I prepared a regular confession 
to/make you, but’. 5’. lve forgotten it all; 1) can- 
not find a word now. I get a hundred and fifty 
roubles a year from my parish, and everyone won- 
ders what I do with the money. . . . But I'll explain 
it all) strulys,\. 4). 1 payitorty roubles ‘ayyear)itothe 
clerical school for my brother Pyotr. He has every- 
thing found there, except that I have to provide pens 
and paper.” 

‘Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what's 
the object of all this?’ said Kunin, with a wave of 
the hand, feeling terribly oppressed by this outburst 
of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not know- 
ing how to get away from the tearful gleam in his 
eyes. 

‘Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe 
to the consistory for my place here. ‘They charged 


A Nightmare 81 


me two hundred roubles for the living, and I was to 
pay ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what 
is left! And, besides, I must allow Father Avraamy 
at least three roubles a month.” 

“What Father Avraamy?”’ 

‘Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino be- 
fore I came. He was deprived of the living on 
account of . . . his failing, but you know, he is still 
living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There 
is no one to keep him. ‘Though he is old, he must 
have a corner, and food and clothing. I can’t let 
him go begging on the roads in his position! It 
would be on my conscience if anything happened! It 
would be my fault! Heis .. . in debt all round; 
but, you see, I am to blame for not paying for him.” 

Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking 
frantically at the floor, strode up and down the room. 

Mig) God! my God!” he «muttered, raisins 
his hands and dropping them again. ‘‘ Lord, save 
us and have mercy uponus! Why did you take such 
a calling on yourself if you have so little faith and 
no strength? There isnoendto my despair! Save 
me, Queen of Heaven! ”’ 

‘Calm yourself, Father,” said Kunin. 

‘“T am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailo- 
vitch,”’ Father Yakov went on. ‘“‘ Generously for- 
give me, but Iam at the end of my strength: |! 1221 
know if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone 
would help, but...) cannot!) Iam: ashamed. 
How can I beg of the peasants? You are on the 
Board here, so you know. . . . How can one beg of 
a beggar? And to beg of richer people, of land- 
owners, I cannot! Ihave pride! I amashamed!” 


’ 


82 The Tales of Chekhov 


Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously 
scratched his head with both hands. 

‘“T am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I 
am proud and can’t bear people to see my poverty! 
When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch, I had no 
tea in the house! ‘There wasn’t a pinch of it, and 
you know it was pride prevented me from telling 
you! Iam ashamed of my clothes, of these patches 
here. . . . I am ashamed of my vestments, of being 
hungry.\/s)\:) And) iste seemly ‘fora \priest! to bey 
proud?” 

Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the 
study, and, as though he did not notice Kunin’s pres- 
ence, began reasoning with himself. 

‘“ Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace 
— but, my God, I have a wife! I took her from 
a good home! She is not used to hard work; she 
is soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets 
on her bed. . . . At home she used to play the pi- 
ano. /2\)s\. sohe\ is young) not ‘twenty wet. /)o) one 
would like, to be sure, to be smart, to have fun, go 
out to see people. . . . And she is worse off with 
me than any cook; she is ashamed to show herself 
in the street. My God, my God! Her only treat 
is when I bring an apple or some biscuit from a 
Vases ei 

Father Yakov scratched his head again with both 
hands. 

‘* And it makes us feel not love but pity for each 
other. . . . I cannot look at her without compas- 
sion! And the things that happen in this life, O 
Lord! Such things that people would not believe 


A Nightmare 83 


them if they saw them in the newspaper. . . . And 
when will there be an end to it all!” 

“Hush, Father!’’ Kunin almost shouted, fright- 
ened at his tone. ‘‘ Why take such a gloomy view 
of life?” 

‘Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch 

.’ muttered Father Yakov as though he were 


drunk. ‘‘ Forgive me, all this . . . doesn’t matter, 
and don’t take any notice of it. . . . Only Ido blame 
nyself, and always shall blame myself . . . always.” 


Father Yakov looked about him and began whis- 
pering: 

‘One morning early I was going from Sinkino to 
Lutchkovo; I saw a woman standing on the river 
bank, doing something. . . . I went up close and 
could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! 
The wife of the doctor, Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting 
there washing her linen. ... A doctor’s wife, 
brought up at a select boarding-school! She had 
got up, you see, early and gone half a mile from 
the village that people should not see her. . . . She 
couldn’t get over her pride! When she saw that I 
was near her and noticed her poverty, she turned red 
all over. . . . I was flustered —I was frightened, 
and ran up to help her, but she hid her linen from 
me; she was afraid I should see her ragged 
Ehemises..... ." 

‘“ All this is positively incredible,” said Kunin, sit- 
ting down and looking almost with horror at Father 
Yakov’s pale face. 

“Incredible it is! It’s a thing that has never 
been, Pavel Mihailovitch, that a doctor’s wife should 


84 The Tales of Chekhov 


be rinsing the linen in the river! Such a thing does 
not happen in any country! As her pastor and spir- 
itual father, I ought not to allow it, but what can 
I do? What? Why, I am always trying to get 
treated by her husband for nothing myself! It is 
true that, as you say, it is all incredible! One can 
hardly believe one’s eyes. During Mass, you know, 
when I look out from the altar and see my congre- 
gation, Avraamy starving, and my wife, and think 
of the doctor’s wife — how blue her hands were from 
the cold water — would you believe it, I forget my- 
self and stand senseless like a fool, until the sacristan 
callsstolme i) Nits awfully” 

Father Yakov began walking about again. 

“Lord Jesus!” he said, waving his hands, ‘‘ holy 
Saints!) T\canjt! oticiate properly.) i erenyou 
talk to me about the school, and I sit like a dummy 
and don’t understand a word, and think of nothing 
but! (foods, 60) Even: before! the altar. :Mons eat 

. what am I doing?” Father Yakov pulled 
himself up suddenly. ‘‘ You want to go out. For- 
siveume, i meant nothings). Excuse tiny 

Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without 
speaking, saw him into the hall, and going back to 
his study, stood at the window. He saw Father 
Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed 
rusty-looking hat over his eyes, and slowly, bowing 
his head, as though ashamed of his outburst, walk 
along the road. 

‘““T don’t see his horse,” thought Kunin. 

Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had 
come on foot every day to see him; it was five or 
six miles to Sinkino, and the mud on the road was 


A Nightmare 85 


impassable. Further on he saw the coachman An- 
drey and the boy Paramon, jumping over the puddles 
and splashing Father Yakov with mud, run up to him 
for his blessing. Father Yakov took off his hat 
and slowly blessed Andrey, then blessed the boy and 
stroked his head. 

Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed 
to him that his hand was moist. He walked away 
from the window and with dim eyes looked round the 
room in which he still seemed to hear the timid dron- 
ing voice. He glanced at the table. Luckily, Fa- 
ther Yakoy, in his haste, had forgotten to take the 
sermons. Kunin rushed up to them, tore them into 
pieces, and with loathing thrust them under the table. 

“And I did not know!” he moaned, sinking on 
to the sofa. ‘‘ After being here over a year as mem- 
ber of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice of the 
Peace, member of the School Committee! Blind 
puppet, egregious idiot! I must make haste and 
help them, I must make haste!” 

He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his 
temples and racked his brains. 

‘On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two 
hundred roubles. . . . On some good pretext 1 will 
give him some, and some to the doctor’s wife. .. . 
I will ask him to perform a special service here, and 
will get up an illness for the doctor. . . . In that 
way I shan’t wound their pride. And I'll help Fa- 
Bien Avraamy too, . . .” 

He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was 
afraid to own to himself that those two hundred rou- 
bles would hardly be enough for him to pay his 
steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the 


86 The Tales of Chekhov 


meat. . . . He could not help remembering the re- 
cent past when he was senselessly squandering his 
father’s fortune, when as a puppy of twenty he had 
given expensive fans to prostitutes, had paid ten rou- 
bles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver, and in his vanity 
had made presents to actresses. Oh, how useful 
those wasted rouble, three rouble, ten rouble notes 
would have been now! 

“Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a 
month!” thought Kunin. ‘“‘ For a rouble the priest’s 
wife could get herself a chemise, and the doctor’s | 
wife could hire a washerwoman. But I'll help them, 
anyway! I must help them.” 

Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private informa- 
tion he had sent to the bishop, and he writhed as 
from a sudden draught of cold air. This remem- 
brance filled him with overwhelming shame before 
his inner self and before the unseen truth. 

So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be 
of public service on the part of a well-intentioned but 
unreflecting and over-comfortable person. 


THE MURDER 







pis rei a eres 

| ‘Ve RIVA teNcr Gas 
ae (in F 
Pets TRIER 
‘ if reset An } 
nue aN 


THE MURDER 
I 


THE evening service was being celebrated at Progon- 
naya Station. Before the great ikon, painted in 
glaring colours on a background of gold, stood the 
crowd of railway servants with their wives and chil- 
dren, and also of the timbermen and sawyers who 
worked close to the railway line. All stood in si- 
lence, fascinated by the glare of the lights and the 
howling of the snow-storm which was aimlessly dis- 
porting itself outside, regardless of the fact that it 
was the Eve of the Annunciation. The old priest 
from Vedenyapino conducted the service; the sacris- 
tan and Matvey Terehov were singing. 

Matvey’s face was beaming with delight; he sang 
stretching out his neck as though he wanted to soar 
upwards. He sang tenor and chanted the 
‘““Praises”’ too in a tenor voice with honied sweet- 
ness and persuasiveness. When he sang ‘“ Arch- 
angel Voices,” he waved his arms like a conductor, 
and trying to second the sacristan’s hollow bass with 
his tenor, achieved something extremely complex, 
and from his face it could be seen that he was ex- 
periencing great pleasure. 

At last the service was over, and they all quietly 
dispersed, and it was dark and empty again, and 
there followed that hush which is only known in 

89 


go The Tales of Chekhov 


stations that stand solitary in the open country or in 
the forest when the wind howls and nothing else is 
heard, and when all the emptiness around, all the 
dreariness of life slowly ebbing away is felt. 

Matvey lived not far from the station at his cous- 
in’s tavern. But he did not want to go home. He 
sat down at the refreshment bar and began talking 
to the waiter in a low voice. 

“We had our own choir in the tile factory. And 
I must tell you that though we were only workmen, 
our singing was first-rate, splendid. We were often 
invited to the town, and when the Deputy Bishop, 
Father Ivan, took the service at Trinity Church, the 
bishop’s singers sang in the right choir and we in 
the left. Only they complained in the town that we 
kept the singing on too long: ‘ the factory choir drag 
it out,’ they used to say. It is true we began St. 
Andrey’s prayers and the Praises between six and 
seven, and it was past eleven when we finished, so 
that it was sometimes after midnight when we got 
home to the factory. It was good,” sighed Matvey. 
“Very good it was, indeed, Sergey Nikanoritch! 
But here in my father’s house it is anything but joy- 
ful. The nearest church is four miles away; with 
my weak health I can’t get so far; there are no sing- 
ers there. And there is no peace or quiet in our 
family; day in day out, there is an uproar, scolding, 
uncleanliness; we all eat out of one bowl like peas- 
ants; and there are beetles in the cabbage soup. . . . 
God has not given me health, else I would have gone 
away long ago, Sergey Nikanoritch.” 

Matvey Terehov was a middle-aged man about 
forty-five, but he had a look of ill-health; his face 


The Murder gl 


was wrinkled and his lank, scanty beard was quite 
grey, and that made him seem many years older. 
He spoke in a weak voice, circumspectly, and held his 
chest when he coughed, while his eyes assumed the 
uneasy and anxious look one sees in very apprehen- 
sive people. He never said definitely what was 
wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at 
length how once at the factory he had lifted a heavy 
box and had ruptured himself, and how this had led 
to “‘the gripes”? and had forced him to give up 
his work in the tile factory and come back to his na- 
tive place; but he could not explain what he meant 
by “‘ the gripes.” 

‘“T must own I am not fond of my cousin,” he went 
on, pouring himself out some tea. ‘‘ He is my elder; 
it is a sin to censure him, and I fear the Lord, but I 
cannot bear it in patience. He is a haughty, surly, 
abusive man; he is the torment of his relations and 
workmen, and constantly out of humour. Last Sun- 
day I asked him in an amiable way, ‘ Brother, let 
us go to Pahomovo for the Mass!’ but he said, ‘I 
am not going; the priest there is a gambler; ’ and he 
would not come here to-day because, he said, the 
priest from Vedenyapino smokes and drinks vodka. 
He doesn’t like the clergy! He reads Mass himself 
and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts 
as sacristan; he says, ‘ Let us pray unto the Lord’! 
and she, in a thin little voice like a turkey-hen, ‘ Lord, 
have mercy upon us! ...’ It’s a sin, that’s what 
itis. Every day I say to him, ‘ Think what you are 
doing, brother! Repent, brother!’ and he takes no 
notice.” 

Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five 


Q2 The Tales of Chekhov 


glasses of tea and carried them on a tray to the wait- 
ing room. He had scarcely gone in when there was 
a shout: 

ids(that ‘the way stolisernve ut. pias aaces) You 
don’t know how to wait! ” 

It was the voice of the station-master. There 
was a timid mutter, then again a harsh and angry 
shout: 

‘ Get along!” 

The waiter came back, greatly crestfallen. 

‘There was a time when I gave satisfaction to 
counts and princes,” he said in a low voice; ‘‘ but 
now I don’t know how to serve tea. . . . He called 
me names before the priest and the ladies! ” 

The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had 
money of his own, and had kept a buffet at a first- 
class station, which was a junction in the principal 
town of a province. There he had worn a swallow- 
tail coat and a gold chain. But things had gone ill 
with him; he had squandered all his own money over 
expensive fittings and service; he had been robbed by 
his staff, and, getting gradually into difficulties, had 
moved to another station less bustling. Here his 
wife had left him, taking with her all the silver, and 
he moved to a third station of a still lower class, 
where no hot dishes were served. Then to a fourth. 
Frequently changing his situation and sinking lower 
and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya, and 
here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, 
and for lunch hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, 
which smelt of tar, and which he himself sarcastic- 
ally said were only fit for the orchestra. He was 
bald all over the top of his head, and had prominent 


The Murder 93 


blue eyes and thick bushy whiskers, which he often 
combed out, looking into the little looking-glass. 
Memories of the past haunted him continually; he 
could never get used to sausage ‘‘only fit for the 
orchestra,” to the rudeness of the station-master, and 
to the peasants who used to haggle over the prices, 
and in his opinion it was as unseemly to haggle over 
prices in a refreshment room as in a chemist’s shop. 
He was ashamed of his poverty and degradation, 
and that shame was now the leading interest of his 
life. 

‘‘ Spring is late this year,’ said Matvey, listening. 
“It’s a good job; I don’t like spring. In spring it 
is very muddy, Sergey Nikanoritch. In books they 
write: Spring, the birds sing, the sun is setting, but 
what is there pleasant inthat? A bird is a bird, and 
10thing more. I am fond of good company, of listen- 
ing to folks, of talking of religion or singing some- 
thing agreeable in chorus; but as for nightingales and 
flowers — bless them, I say!” 

He began again about the tile factory, about the 
choir, but Sergey Nikanoritch could not get over 
his mortification, and kept shrugging his shoulders 
and muttering. Matvey said good-bye and went 
home. 

There was no frost, and the snow was already 
melting on the roofs, though it was still falling in big 
flakes; they were whirling rapidly round and round 
in the air and chasing one another in white clouds 
along the railway lines. And the oak forest on both 
sides of the line, in the dim light of the moon, which 
was hidden somewhere high up in the clouds, re- 
sounded with a prolonged sullen murmur. When a 


Q4 The Tales of Chekhov 


violent storm shakes the trees, how terrible they are! 
Matvey walked along the causeway beside the line, 
covering his face and his hands, while the wind beat 
on his back. All at once a little nag, plastered all 
over with snow, came into sight; a sledge scraped 
along the bare stones of the causeway, and a peas- 
ant, white all over, too, with his head muffled up, 
cracked his whip. Matvey looked round after him, 
but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was 
neither sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened 
his steps, suddenly scared, though he did not know 
why. 

Here was the crossing and the dark little house 
where the signalman lived. ‘The barrier was raised, 
and by it perfect mountains had drifted and clouds 
of snow were whirling round like witches on broom- 
sticks. At that point the line was crossed by an 
old highroad, which was still called ‘“‘ the track.” 
On the right, not far from the crossing, by the road- 
side stood Terehov’s tavern, which had been a post- 
ing inn. Here there was always a light twinkling 
at night. 

When Matvey reached home there was a strong 
smell of incense in all the rooms and even in the 
entry. His cousin Yakov Ivanitch was still reading 
the evening service. In the prayer-room where this 
was going on, in the corner opposite the door, there 
stood a shrine of old-fashioned ancestral ikons in 
gilt settings, and both walls to right and to left 
were decorated with ikons of ancient and modern 
fashion, in shrines and without them. On the table, 
which was draped to the floor, stood an ikon of the 
Annunciation, and close by a cyprus-wood cross and 


The Murder Q5 


the censer; wax candles were burning. Beside the 
table was a reading desk. As he passed by the 
prayer-room, Matvey stopped and glanced in at the 
door. Yakov Ivanitch was reading at the desk at 
that moment; his sister Aglaia, a tall lean old woman 
in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying 
with him. Yakov Ivanitch’s daughter Dashutka, 
an ugly freckled girl of eighteen, was there, too, bare- 
foot as usual, and wearing the dress in which she had 
at nightfall taken water to the cattle. 

“Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!” 
Yakoy Ivanitch boomed out in a chant, bowing low. 

Aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted 
in a thin, shrill, drawling voice. And upstairs, above 
the ceiling, there was the sound of vague voices which 
seemed menacing or ominous of evil. No one had 
lived on the storey above since a fire there a long 
time ago. The windows were boarded up, and 
empty bottles lay about on the floor between the 
beams. Now the wind was banging and droning, 
and it seemed as though someone were running and 
stumbling over the beams. 

Half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, 
while Terehov’s family lived in the other half, so 
that when drunken visitors were noisy in the tavern 
every word they said could be heard in the rooms. 
Matvey lived in a room next the kitchen, with a big 
stove, in which, in old days, when this had been a 
posting inn, bread had been baked every day. Da- 
shutka, who had no room of her own, lived in the 
same room behind the stove. A cricket chirped 
there always at night and mice ran in and out. 

Matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book 


96 The Tales of Chekhov 


which he had borrowed from the station policeman. 
While he was sitting over it the service ended, and 
they all went to bed. Dashutka lay down, too. She 
began snoring at once, but soon woke up and said, 
yawning: 

“You shouldn’t burn a candle for nothing, Uncle 
Matvey.”’ 

‘It’s my candle,” answered Matvey; “ I bought 
it with my own money.” 

Dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. 
Matvey sat up a good time longer —he was not 
sleepy — and when he had finished the last page he 
took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book: 

“I, Matvey Terehov, have read this book, and 
think it the very best of all books I have read, for 
which I express my gratitude to the noncommissioned 
officer of the Police Department of Railways, Kuzma 
Nikolaev Zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless 
book.” 

He considered it an obligation of politeness to 
make such inscriptions in other people’s books. 


II 


On Annunciation Day, after the mail train had 
been seen off, Matvey was sitting in the refreshment 
bar, talking and drinking tea with lemon in it. 

The waiter and Zhukov the policeman were listen- 
ing to him. 

‘““T was, I must tell you,” Matvey was saying, 
‘inclined to religion from my earliest childhood. I 
was only twelve years old when I used to read the 


The Murder 97 


epistle in church, and my parents were greatly de- 
lighted, and every summer I used to go on a pilgrim- 
age with my dear mother. Sometimes other lads 
would be singing songs and catching crayfish, while I 
would be all the time with my mother. My elders 
commended me, and, indeed, I was pleased myself 
that I was of such good behaviour. And when my 
mother sent me with her blessing to the factory, I 
used between working hours to sing tenor there in 
our choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. 
I needn’t say, I drank no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, 
and lived in chastity; but we all know such a mode of 
life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind, and he, 
the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began 
to darken my mind, just as now with my cousin. 
First of all, I took a vow to fast every Monday and 
not to eat meat any day, and as time went on all sorts 
of fancies came over me. For the first week of 
Lent down to Saturday the holy fathers have or- 
dained a diet of dry food, but it is no sin for the weak 
or those who work hard even to drink tea, yet not a 
crumb passed into my mouth till the Sunday, and 
afterwards all through Lent I did not allow myself 
a drop of oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I 
did not touch a morsel at all. It was the same in 
the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St. Peter’s fast our 
factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a 
little apart from them and suck a dry crust. Dif- 
ferent people have different powers, of course, but I 
can say of myself I did not find fast days hard, and, 
indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You 
are only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then 
you get used to it; it goes on getting easier, and by 


98 The Tales of Chekhov 


the end of a week you don’t mind it at all, and there 
is a numb feeling in your legs as though you were not 
on earth, but in the clouds. And, besides that, I laid 
all sorts of penances on myself; I used to get up in 
the night and pray, bowing down to the ground, used 
to drag heavy stones from place to place, used to go 
out barefoot in the snow, and I even wore chains, 
too. Only, as time went on, you know, I was con- 
fessing one day to the priest and suddenly this re- 
flection occurred to me: why, this priest, I thought, is 
married, he eats meat and smokes tobacco — how 
can he confess me, and what power has he to absolve 
my sins if he is more sinful than I? I even scruple 
to eat Lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon, I dare say. 
I went to another priest, and he, as ill-luck would 
have it, was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he 
rustled like a lady, and he smelt of tobacco, too. I 
went to fast and confess in the monastery, and my 
heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying the 
monks were not living according to their rules. 
And after that I could not find a service to my mind: 
in one place they read the service too fast, in another 
they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan 
stammered. Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sin- 
ner, I would stand in church and my heart would 
throb with anger. How could one pray, feeling 
like that? And I fancied that the people in the 
church did not cross themselves properly, did not 
listen properly; wherever I looked it seemed to me 
that they were all drunkards, that they broke the fast, 
smoked, lived loose lives and played cards. I was 
the only one who lived according to the command- 
ments. The wily spirit did not slumber; it got worse 


The Murder 99 


as it went on. I gave up singing in the choir and I 
did not go to church at all; since my notion was that 
I was a righteous man and that the church did not suit 
me owing to its imperfections — that is, indeed, like 
a fallen angel, I was puffed up in my pride beyond all 
belief. After this I began attempting to make a 
church for myself. I hired from a deaf woman a 
tiny little room, a long way out of town near the cem- 
etery, and made a prayer-room like my cousin’s, only 
I had big church candlesticks, too, and a real censer. 
In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of holy 
Mount Athos — that is, every day my matins began 
at midnight without fail, and on the eve of the chief 
of the twelve great holy days my midnight service 
lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks 
are allowed by rule to sit during the singing of the 
Psalter and the reading of the Bible, but I wanted 
to be better than the monks, and so I used to stand 
all through. I used to read and sing slowly, with 
tears and sighing, lifting up my hands, and I used 
to go straight from prayer to work without sleeping; 
and, indeed, I was always praying at my work, too. 
Well, it got all over the town ‘ Matvey is a saint; 
Matvey heals the sick and the senseless.’ I never 
had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wher- 
ever any heresy or false doctrine springs up there’s 
no keeping the female sex away. They are just like 
flies on the honey. Old maids and females of all 
sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, 
kissing my hands and crying out I was a saint and 
all the rest of it, and one even saw a halo round my 
head. It was too crowded in the prayer-room. I 
took a bigger room, and then we had a regular tower 


100 The Tales of Chekhov 
of Babel. The devil got hold of me completely and 


screened the light from my eyes with his unclean 
hoofs. We all behaved as though we were frantic. 
I read, while the old maids and other females sang, 
and then after standing on their legs for twenty-four 
hours or longer without eating or drinking, suddenly 
a trembling would come over them as though they 
were in a fever; after that, one would begin scream- 
ing and then another —it was horrible! I, too, 
would shiver all over like a Jew in a frying-pan, I 
don’t know myself why, and our legs began to prance 
about. It’s a strange thing, indeed: you don’t want 
to, but you prance about and waggle your arms; and 
after that, screaming and shrieking, we all danced 
and ran after one another — ran till we dropped; 
and in that way, in wild frenzy, I fell into fornica- 
tion.” 

The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no 
one else was laughing, became serious and said: 

“That’s Molokanism. I have heard they are all 
like that in the Caucasus.” 

‘But I was not killed by a thunderbolt,” Matvey 
went on, crossing himself before the ikon and moving 
his lips. ‘‘ My dead mother must have been pray- 
ing for me in the other world. When everyone in 
the town looked upon me as a saint, and even ladies 
and gentlemen of good family used to come to me in 
secret for consolation, I happened to go in to our 
landlord, Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness — it 
was the Day of Forgiveness — and he fastened the 
door with the hook, and we were left alone face to 
face. And he began to reprove me, and I must tell 
you Osip Varlamitch was a man of brains, though 


The Murder 101 


without education, and everyone respected and feared 
him, for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life and 
worked hard. He had been the mayor of the town, 
and a warden of the church for twenty years maybe, 
and had done a great deal of good; he had covered 
all the New Moscow Road with gravel, had painted 
the church, and had decorated the columns to look 
like malachite. Well, he fastened the door, and — 
‘I have been wanting to get at you for a long time, 
you rascal, . . .’ he said. ‘ You think you are a 
saint,’ he said. ‘ No, you are not a saint, but a back- 
slider from God, a heretic and an evildoer! .. .’ 
And he went on and on. . . . I can’t tell you how 
he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as though it 
were all written down, and so touchingly. He talked 
for two hours. His words penetrated my soul; my 
eyes were opened. I listened, listened and — burst 
into sobs! ‘ Be an ordinary man,’ he said, ‘ eat and 
drink, dress and pray like everyone else. All that is 
above the ordinary is of the devil. Your chains,’ he 
said, ‘are of the devil; your fasting is of the devil; 
your prayer-room is of the devil. It is all pride,’ 
he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it 
pleased God I should fall ill. I ruptured myself and 
was taken to the hospital. I was terribly worried, 
and wept bitterly andtrembled. I thought there was 
a straight road before me from the hospital to hell, 
and I almost died. I was in misery on a bed of sick- 
ness for six months, and when I was discharged the 
first thing I did I confessed, and took the sacrament 
in the regular way and became a man again. Osip 
Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me: ‘ Re- 
member, Matvey, that anything above the ordinary 


102 The Tales of Chekhov 


is of the devil.’ And now I eat and drink like every- 
one else and pray like everyone else. . . . If it hap- 
pens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I 
don’t venture to blame him, because the priest, too, 
of course, is an ordinary man. But as soon as I am 
told that in the town or in the village a saint has 
set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes rules 
of his own, I know whose work it is. So that is how 
I carried on in the past, gentlemen. Now, like Osip 
Varlamitch, I am continually exhorting my cousins 
and reproaching them, but I am a voice crying in the 
wilderness. God has not vouchsafed me the gift.” 

Matvey’s story evidently made no impression 
whatever. Sergey Nikanoritch said nothing, but be- 
gan clearing the refreshments off the counter, while 
the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey’s 
cousin was. 

“He must have thirty thousand at least,” he said. 

Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red- 
haired man with a full face (his cheeks quivered 
when he walked), usually sat lolling and crossing his 
legs when not in the presence of his superiors. As 
he talked he swayed to and fro and whistled care- 
lessly, while his face had a self-satisfied, replete air, 
as though he had just had dinner. He was making 
money, and he always talked of it with the air of a 
connoisseur. He undertook jobs as an agent, and 
when anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a 
carriage, they applied to him. 

‘Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say,” Ser- 
gey Nikanoritch assented. ‘‘ Your grandfather had 
an immense fortune,” he said, addressing Matvey. 
‘Immense it was; all left to your father and your 


The Murder 103 


uncle. Your father died as a young man and your 
uncle got hold of it all, and afterwards, of course, 
Yakov Ivanitch. While you were going pilgrimages 
with your mamma and singing tenor in the factory, 
they didn’t let the grass grow under their feet.”’ 

‘‘ Fifteen thousand comes to your share,” said the 
policeman, swaying from side to side. ‘* The tavern 
belongs to you in common, so the capital is in com- 
mon. Yes. If I were in your place I should have 
taken it into court long ago. I would have taken it 
into court for one thing, and while the c.se was going 
on I’d have knocked his face to a jelly.” 

Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone 
believes differently from others, it upsets even people 
who are indifferent to religion. The policeman dis- 
liked him also because he, too, sold horses and car- 
riages. 

‘You don’t care about going to law with your 
cousin because you have plenty of money of your 
own,” said the waiter to Matvey, looking at him 
with envy. ‘It is all very well for anyone who has 
means, but here I shall die in this position, I sup- 
BOSE e/a 

Matvey began declaring that he hadn’t any money 
at all, but Sergey Nikanoritch was not listening. 
Memories of the past and of the insults which he en- 
dured every day came showering upon him. His 
bald head began to perspire; he flushed and blinked. 

‘““ A cursed life! ’’ he said with vexation, and he 
banged the sausage on the floor. 


104 The Tales of Chekhoy 


II] 


The story ran that the tavern had been built in 
the time of Alexander I., by a widow who had set- 
tled here with her son; her name was Avdotya Tere- 
hov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates 
always kept locked excited, especially on moonlight 
nights, a feeling of depression and unaccountable 
uneasiness in people who drove by with posting- 
horses, as though sorcerers or robbers were living in 
it; and the driver always looked back after he had 
passed, and whipped up his horses. ‘Travellers did 
not care to put up here, as the people of the house 
were always unfriendly and charged heavily. The 
yard was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used 
to lie there in the mud, and the horses in which the 
Terehovs dealt wandered about untethered, and often 
it happened that they ran out of the yard and dashed 
along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pil- 
grim women. At that time there was a great deal of 
trafic on the road; long trains of loaded waggons 
trailed by, and all sorts of adventures happened, such 
as, for instance, that thirty years ago some waggon- 
ers got up a quarrel with a passing merchant and 
killed him, and a slanting cross is standing to this 
day half a mile from the tavern; posting-chaises with 
bells and the heavy dormeuses of country gentlemen 
drove by; and herds of horned cattle passed, bellow- 
ing and stirring up clouds of dust. 

When the railway came there was at first at this 
place only a platform, which was called simply a 


The Murder 105 


halt; ten years afterwards the present station, Pro- 
gonnaya, was built. ‘The traffic on the old posting- 
road almost ceased, and only local landowners and 
peasants drove along it now, but the working people 
walked there in crowds in spring and autumn. The 
posting-inn was transformed into a restaurant; the 
upper storey was destroyed by fire, the roof had 
grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had 
fallen by degrees, but huge fat pigs, pink and re- 
volting, still wallowed in the mud in the yard. As 
before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lash- 
ing their tails, dashed madly along the road. In the 
tavern they sold tea, hay, oats and flour, as well as 
vodka and beer, to be drunk on the premises and also 
to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors warily, 
for they had never taken out a licence. 

The Terehovs had always been distinguished by 
their piety, so much so that they had even been 
given the nickname of the “ Godlies.”’ But perhaps 
because they lived apart like bears, avoided people 
and thought out all their ideas for themselves, they 
were given to dreams and to doubts and to changes of 
faith, and almost each generation had a peculiar 
faith of its own. The grandmother Avdotya, who 
had built the inn, was an Old Believer; her son and 
both her grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and 
Yakov) went to the Orthodox church, entertained the 
clergy, and worshipped before the new ikons as de- 
voutly as they had done before the old. ‘The son in 
old age refused to eat meat and imposed upon him- 
self the rule of silence, considering all conversation as 
sin; it was the peculiarity of the grandsons that they 


106 The Tales of Chekhov 


interpreted the Scripture not simply, but sought in it 
a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word 
must contain a mystery. 

Avdotya’s great-grandson Matvey had struggled 
from early childhood with all sorts of dreams and 
fancies, and had been almost ruined by it; the other 
great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but 
after his wife’s death he gave up going to church 
and prayed at home. Following his example, his 
sister Aglaia had turned, too; she did not go to 
church herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of 
Aglaia it was told that in her youth she used to attend 
the Flagellant meetings in Vedenyapino, and that 
she was still a Flagellant in secret, and that was why 
she wore a white kerchief. 

Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey; 
he was a very handsome tall old man with a big 
grey beard almost to his waist, and bushy eyebrows 
which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured expres- 
sion. He wore a long jerkin of good cloth or a 
black sheepskin coat, and altogether tried to be clean 
and neat in dress; he wore goloshes even in dry 
weather. He did not go to church, because, to his 
thinking, the services were not properly celebrated 
and because the priests drank wine at unlawful times 
and smoked tobacco. Every day he read and sang 
the service at home with Aglaia. At Vedenyapino 
they left out the ‘‘ Praises” at early matins, and had 
no evening service even on great holidays, but he 
used to read through at home everything that was 
laid down for every day, without hurrying or leaving 
out a single line, and in his spare time read aloud 
the Lives of the Saints. And in everyday life he 


The Murder 107 


adhered strictly to the rules of the church; thus, 
if wine were allowed on some day in Lent, “ for the 
sake of the vigil,’ then he never failed to drink 
wine, even if he were not inclined. 

He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not 
for the sake of receiving blessings of some sort from 
God, but for the sake of good order. Man cannot 
live without religion, and religion ought to be ex- 
pressed from year to year and from day to day in 
a certain order, so that every morning and every 
evening a man might turn to God with exactly those 
words and thoughts that were befitting that special 
day and hour. One must live and, therefore, also 
pray as is pleasing to God, and so every day one 
must read and sing what is pleasing to God — that 
is, what is laid down in the rule of the church. Thus 
the first chapter of St. John must only be read on 
Easter Day, and ‘“‘It is most meet”? must not be 
sung from Easter to Ascension, and so on. ‘The con- 
sciousness of this order and its importance afforded 
Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his reli- 
gious exercises. When he was forced to break this 
order by some necessity — to drive to town or to the 
bank, for instance — his conscience was uneasy and 
he felt miserable. 

When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpect- 
edly from the factory and settled in the tavern as 
though it were his home, he had from the very first 
day disturbed this settled order. He refused to 
pray with them, had meals and drank tea at wrong 
times, got up late, drank milk on Wednesdays and 
Fridays on the pretext of weak health; almost every 
day he went into the prayer-room while they were 


108 The Tales of Chekhov 


at prayers and cried: ‘‘ Think what you are doing, 
brother! Repent, brother!” These words threw 
Yakov into a fury, while Aglaia could not refrain 
from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey would 
steal into the prayer-room and say softly: ‘‘ Cousin, 
your prayer is not pleasing to God. For it is writ- 
ten, First be reconciled with thy brother and then 
offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal 
in vodka — repent!” 

In Matvey’s words Yakov saw nothing but the 
usual evasions of empty-headed and careless people 
who talk of loving your neighbour, of being recon- 
ciled with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid 
praying, fasting and reading holy books, and who 
talk contemptuously of profit and interest simply be- 
cause they don’t like working. Of course, to be 
poor, save nothing, and put by nothing was a great 
deal easier than being rich. 

But yet he was troubled and could not pray as 
before. As soon as he went into the prayer-room 
and opened the book he began to be afraid his cousin 
would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey 
did soon appear and cry in a trembling voice: 
‘Think what you are doing, brother! Repent, 
brother!”? Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too, flew 
into a passion and shouted: “Go out of my 
house!” while Matvey answered him: ‘ The house 
belongs to both of us.” 

Yakov would begin singing and reading again, 
but he could not regain his calm, and unconsciously 
fell to dreaming over his book. Though he re- 
garded his cousin’s words as nonsense, yet for some 
reason it had of late haunted his memory that it 


The Murder 109 


is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of 
heaven, that the year before last he had made a very 
good bargain over buying a stolen horse, that one 
day when his wife was alive a drunkard had died of 
vodka in his tavern. . . 

He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, 
and he could hear that Matvey, too, was awake, 
and continually sighing and pining for his tile fac- 
tory. And while Yakov turned over from one side 
to another at night he thought of the stolen horse 
and the drunken man, and what was said in the 
gospels about the camel. 

It looked as though his dreaminess were coming 
over him again. And as ill-luck would have it, al- 
though it was the end of March, every day it kept 
snowing, and the forest roared as though it were 
winter, and there was no believing that spring would 
ever come. The weather disposed one to depres- 
sion, and to quarrelling and to hatred, and in the 
night, when the wind droned over the ceiling, it 
seemed as though someone were living overhead in 
the empty storey; little by little the broodings settled 
like a burden on his mind, his head burned and he 
could not sleep. 


IV 


On the morning of the Monday before Good 
Friday, Matvey. heard from his room Dashutka say 
to Aglaia: 

‘Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is 
no need to fast.” 

Matvey remembered the whole conversation he 


110 The Tales of Chekhov 


had had the evening before with Dashutka, and he 
felt hurt all at once. 

‘Girl, don’t do wrong!” he said in a moaning 
voice, like a sick man. ‘‘ You can’t do without 
fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty days. I 
only explained that fasting does a bad man no good.” 

“You should just listen to the factory hands; 
they can teach you goodness,’”’ Aglaia said sarcas- 
tically as she washed the floor (she usually washed 
the floors on working days and was always angry 
with everyone when she did it). ‘‘ We know how 
they keep the fasts in the factory. You had better 
ask that uncle of yours — ask him about his ‘ Dar- 
ling,’ how he used to guzzle milk on fast days with 
her, the viper. He teaches others; he forgets about 
his viper. But ask him who was it he left his money 
with — who was it?”’ 

Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, 
as though it were a foul sore, that during that period 
of his life when old women and unmarried girls had 
danced and run about with him at their prayers he 
had formed a connection with a working woman and 
had had a child by her. When he went home he 
had given this woman all he had saved at the factory, 
and had borrowed from his landlord for his journey, 
and now he had only a few roubles which he spent 
on tea and candles. The “ Darling” had informed 
him later on that the child was dead, and asked him 
in a letter what she should do with the money. ‘This 
letter was brought from the station by the labourer. 
Aglaia intercepted it and read it, and had reproached 
Matvey with his “ Darling” every day since. 


The Murder re Wa 


‘Just fancy, nine hundred roubles,’ Aglaia went 
on. ‘“ You gave nine hundred roubles to a viper, 
no relation, a factory jade, blast you!” She had 
flown into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: 
‘““Can’t you speak? I could tear you to pieces, 
wretched creature! Nine hundred roubles as 
though it were a farthing. You might have left it 
to Dashutka — she is a relation, not a stranger — 
or else have sent it to Byelev for Marya’s poor 
orphans. And your viper did not choke, may she 
be thrice accursed, the she-devil! May she never 
look upon the light of day!” 

Yakov Ivanitch called to her; it was time to begin 
the ‘‘ Hours.” She washed, put on a white kerchief, 
and by now quiet and meek, went into the prayer- 
room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to 
Matvey or served peasants in the tavern with tea 
she was a gaunt, keen-eyed, ill-humoured old woman; 
in the prayer-room her face was serene and softened, 
she looked younger altogether, she curtsied aftect- 
edly, and even pursed up her lips. 

Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly 
and dolefully, as he always did in Lent. After he 
had read a little he stopped to listen to the stillness 
that reigned through the house, and then went on 
reading again, with a feeling of gratification; he 
folded his hands in supplication, rolled his eyes, 
shook his head, sighed. But all at once there was 
the sound of voices. The policeman and Sergey 
Nikanoritch had come to see Matvey. Yakov Ivan- 
itch was embarrassed at reading aloud and singing 
when there were strangers in the house, and now, 


1k2, The Tales of Chekhov 


hearing voices, he began reading in a whisper and 
slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the 
waiter say: 

‘The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business 
for fifteen hundred. He'll take five hundred down 
and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so, Matvey Vas- 
silitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred 
roubles. I will pay you two per cent. a month.” 

' What money have I got?’ cried) Matvey, 
amazed. “I have no money!” 

‘Two per cent. a month will be a godsend to 
you,” the policeman explained. ‘‘ While lying by, 
your money is simply eaten by the moth, and that’s 
all that you get from it.” 

Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence 
followed. But Yakov Ivanitch had hardly begun 
reading and singing again when a voice was heard 
outside the door: 

‘‘ Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Veden- 
yapino.” 

It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. 

‘Which can you go with?” he asked after a mo- 
ment’s thought. ‘‘ The man has gone with the sorrel 
to take the pig, and I am going with the little stallion 
to Shuteykino as soon as I have finished.” 

‘‘ Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses 
and not I?”’ Matvey asked with irritation. 

_ ““ Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but 
for work.” 

‘Our property is in common, so the horses are in 
common, too, and you ought to understand that, 
brother.” 

A silence followed. Yakov did not go on pray- 


The Murder jie 


ing, but waited for Matvey to go away from the 
door. 

“Brother,” said Matvey, “I am a sick man. I[ 
don’t want possessions —let them go; you have 
them, but give me a small share to keep me in my 
illness. Give it me and I’ll go away.” 

Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of 
Matvey, but he could not give him money, since all 
the money was in the business; besides, there had 
never been a case of the family dividing in the whole 
history of the Terehovs. Division means ruin. 

Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey 
to go away, and kept looking at his sister, afraid 
that she would interfere, and that there would be 
a storm of abuse again, as there had been in the 
morning. When at last Matvey did go Yakov went 
on reading, but now he had no pleasure init. There 
was a heaviness in his head and a darkness before 
his eyes from continually bowing down to the ground, 
and he was weary of the sound of his soft dejected 
voice. When such a depression of spirit came over 
him at night, he put it down to not being able to 
sleep; by day it frightened him, and he began to feel 
as though devils were sitting on his head and 
shoulders. 

Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied 
and ill-humoured, he set off for Shuteykino. In the 
previous autumn a gang of navvies had dug a bound- 
ary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at 
the tavern for eighteen roubles, and now he had to 
find their foreman in Shuteykino and get the money 
from him. ‘The road had been spoilt by the thaw 
and the snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full 


114 The Tales of Chekhov 


of holes, and in parts it had given way altogether. 
The snow had sunk away at the sides below the road, 
so that he had to drive, as it were, upon a narrow 
causeway, and it was very difficult to turn off it when 
he met anything. The sky had been overcast ever 
since the morning and a damp wind was blow- 
iets 

A long train of sledges met him; peasant women 
were carting bricks. Yakov had to turn off the road. 
His horse sank into the snow up to its belly; the 
sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling 
out he bent over to the left, and sat so all the time 
the sledges moved slowly by him. Through the 
wind he heard the creaking of the sledge poles and 
the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women 
saying about him, ‘‘ There’s Godly coming,” while 
one, gazing with compassion at his horse, said 

quickly: 
~ “Tt looks as though the snow will be lying till 
Yegory’s Day! They are worn out with it!” 

Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up 
his eyes on account of the wind, while horses and red 
bricks kept passing before him. And perhaps be- 
cause he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he 
felt all at once annoyed, and the business he was 
going about seemed to him unimportant, and he re- 
flected that he might send the labourer next day to 
Shuteykino. Again, as in the previous sleepless 
night, he thought of the saying about the camel, and 
then memories of all sorts crept into his mind: of 
the peasant who had sold him the stolen horse, of 
the drunken man, of the peasant women who had 
brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course, 


The Murder 115 


every merchant tries to get as much as he can, but 
Yakov felt depressed that he was in trade; he longed 
to get somewhere far away from this routine, and he 
felt dreary at the thought that he would have to 
read the evening service that day. The wind blew 
straight into his face and soughed in his collar, and 
it seemed as though it were whispering to him all 
these thoughts, bringing them from the broad white 
plain. . . . Looking at that plain, familiar to him 
from childhood, Yakov remembered that he had had 
just this same trouble and these same thoughts in 
his young days when dreams and imaginings had 
come upon him and his faith had wavered. 

He felt miserable at being alone in the open coun- 
try; he turned back and drove slowly after the 
sledges, and the women laughed and said: ‘‘ Godly 
has turned back.” 

At home nothing had been cooked and the samo- 
var was not heated, owing to the fast, and this 
made the day seem very long. Yakov Ivanitch had 
long ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched 
the flour to the station, and twice taken up the Psalms 
to read, and yet the evening was still far off. Aglaia 
had already washed all the floors, and, having noth- 
ing to do, was tidying up her chest, the lid of which 
was pasted over on the inside with labels off bottles. 
Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or 
went up to the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized 
the tiles which reminded him of the factory. Da- 
shutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to take 
water to the cattle. When she was getting water 
from the well the cord broke and the pail fell in. 
The labourer began looking for a boathook to get 


116 The Tales of Chekhov 


the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs as 
red as a goose’s, followed him about in the muddy 
snow, repeating: “It’s too far!’ She meant to say 
that the well was too deep for the hook to reach the 
bottom, but the labourer did not understand her, and 
evidently she bothered him, so that he suddenly 
turned round and abused her in unseemly language. 
Yakov Ivanitch, coming out that moment into the 
yard, heard Dashutka answer the labourer in a long 
rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only 
have learned from drunken peasants in the tavern. 

‘“'What are you saying, shameless girl!’ he cried 
to her, and he was positively aghast. ‘‘ What lan- 
guage!” 

And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, 
not understanding why she should not use those 
words. He would have admonished her, but she 
struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the 
first time he realized that she had no religion. And 
all this life in the forest, in the snow, with drunken 
peasants, with coarse oaths, seemed to him as savage 
and benighted as this girl, and instead of giving her a 
lecture he only waved his hand and went back into 
the room. 

At that moment the policeman and Sergey 
Nikanoritch came in again to see Matvey. Yakov 
Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had no re- 
ligion, and that that did not trouble them in the 
least; and human life began to seem to him as 
strange, senseless and unenlightened as a dog’s. 
Bareheaded he walked about the yard, then he went 
out on to the road, clenching his fists. Snow was 
falling in big flakes at the time. His beard was 


The Murder tay 


blown about in the wind. He kept shaking his head, 
as though there were something weighing upon his 
head and shoulders, as though devils were sitting on 
them; and it seemed to him that it was not himself 
walking about, but some wild beast, a huge terrible 
beast, and that if he were to cry out his voice would 
be a roar that would sound all over the forest and 
the plain, and would frighten everyone... . 


Vv 


When he went back into the house the policeman 
was no longer there, but the waiter was sitting with 
Matvey, counting something on the reckoning beads. 
He was in the habit of coming often, almost every 
day, to the tavern; in old days he had come to see 
Yakov Ivanitch, now he came to see Matvey. He 
was continually reckoning on the beads, while his 
face perspired and looked strained, or he would ask 
for money or, stroking his whiskers, would describe 
how he had once been in a first-class station and used 
to prepare champagne punch for officers, and at 
grand dinners served the sturgeon soup with his own 
hands. Nothing in this world interested him but 
refreshment bars, and he could only talk about things 
to eat, about wines and the paraphernalia of the 
dinner-table. On one occasion, handing a cup of 
tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and 
wishing to say something agreeable to her, he ex- 
pressed himself in this way: 

‘“The mother’s breast is the baby’s refreshment 
bar.” 


118 The Tales of Chekhov 


Reckoning with the beads in Matvey’s room, he 
asked for money; said he could not go on living at 
Progonnaya, and several times repeated in a tone 
of voice that sounded as though he were just going to 
ny. 

‘“Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? 
Wellime that,’ please. 

Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began 
peeling some boiled potatoes which he had probably 
put away from the day before. It was quiet, and 
it seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was 
gone. It was past the time for evening service; 
he called Aglaia, and, thinking there was no one else 
in the house, sang out aloud without embarrassment. 
He sang and read, but was inwardly pronouncing 
other words, ‘‘ Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!”’ 
and, one after another, without ceasing, he made low 
bows to the ground as though he wanted to exhaust 
himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that Aglaia 
looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey 
would come in, and was certain that he would come 
in, and felt an anger against him which he could 
overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bow- 
ing down to the ground. 

Matvey opened the door very softly and went into 
the prayer-room. 

‘““Tt’s a sin, such a sin!”’ he said reproachfully, 
and heavedasigh. ‘‘ Repent! Think what you are 
doing, brother! ” 

Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not look- 
ing at him for fear of striking him, went quickly 
out of the room. Feeling himself a huge terrible 
wild beast, just as he had done before on the road, 


The Murder 119 


he crossed the passage into the grey, dirty room, 
reeking with smoke and fog, in which the peasants 
usually drank tea, and there he spent a long time 
walking from one corner to the other, treading 
heavily, so that the crockery jingled on the shelves 
and the tables shook. It was clear to him now 
that he was himself dissatisfied with his religion, 
and could not pray as he used to do. He must 
repent, he must think things over, reconsider, live 
and pray in some other way. But how pray? And 
perhaps all this was a temptation of the devil, and 
nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was it to 
be? What was he to do? Who could guide him? 
What helplessness! He stopped and, clutching at 
his head, began to think, but Matvey’s being near 
him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he 
went rapidly into the room. 

Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl 
of potato, eating. Close by, near the stove, Aglaia 
and Dashutka were sitting facing one another, spin- 
ning yarn. Between the stove and the table at 
which Matvey was sitting was stretched an ironing- 
board; on it stood a cold iron. 

‘Sister,’ Matvey asked, “let me have a little 
oil!” 

‘‘ Who eats oil on a day like this?’ asked Aglaia. 

‘‘T am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in 
my weak health I may take not only oil but milk.” 

‘Yes, at the factory you may have anything.” 

Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf 
and banged it angrily down before Matvey, with a 
malignant smile, evidently pleased that he was such 
a sinner. 


120 The Tales of Chekhov 


“But. I tell ‘you, you\ can't) eat) oil!) shouted 
Yakov. 

Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured 
the oil into the bowl and went on eating as though 
he had not heard. 

‘“‘T tell you, you can’t eat oil!’ Yakov shouted 
still more loudly; he turned red all over, snatched 
up the bowl, lifted it higher than his head, and 
dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that 


it flew into fragments. ‘‘ Don’t dare to speak!” he 
cried in a furious voice, though Matvey had not 
said/@ avord. | Don't;.dare! > the) repeated, .agd 


struck his fist on the table. 

Matvey turned pale and got up. 

“Brother!” he said, still munching — “ brother, 
think what you are about! ”’ 

‘“‘ Out of my house this minute! ”’ shouted Yakov; 
he loathed Matvey’s wrinkled face, and his voice, 
and the crumbs on his moustache, and the fact that he 
was munching. “Out, I tell you!” 

‘“‘ Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has 
confounded you! ” 

‘Hold your, tongue” (Yakov \stamped.) 
“Go away, you devil!” 

“Tf you care to know,”’ Matvey went on in a loud 
voice, as he, too, began to get angry, “‘ you are a 
backslider from God and a heretic. The accursed 
spirits have hidden the true light from you; your 
prayer is not acceptable to God. Repent before it 
is too late! The deathbed of the sinner is terrible! 
Repent, brother!” 

Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged 
him away from the table, while he turned whiter than 


The Murder 121 


ever, and, frightened and bewildered, began mutter- 
ing, ‘‘ What is it? What’s the matter?” and, strug- 
gling and making efforts to free himself from 
Yakov’s hands, he accidentally caught hold of his 
shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it seemed 
to Aglaia that he was trying to beat Yakov. She © 
uttered a shriek, snatched up the bottle of Lenten 
oil and with all her force brought it down straight 
on the skull of the cousin she hated. Matvey reeled, 
and in one instant his face became calm and indiffer- 
ent. Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling 
pleasure at the gurgle the bottle had made, like a 
living thing, when it had struck the head, kept him 
from falling and several times (he remembered this 
very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron 
with his finger; and only when the blood began 
trickling through his hands and he heard Dashutka’s 
loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell with a 
crash, and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov 
left off feeling anger and understood what had hap- 
pened. 

‘Let him rot, the factory buck!’ Aglaia brought 
out with repulsion, still keeping the iron in her hand. 
The white bloodstained kerchief slipped on to her 
shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder. ‘‘ He’s 
got what he deserved! ”’ 

Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the 
floor near the stove with the yarn in her hands, sob- 
bing, and continually bowing down, uttering at each 
bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible 
to Yakov as the potato in the blood, on which he 
was afraid of stepping, and there was something else 
terrible which weighed upon him like a bad dream 


122 The Tales of Chekhov 


and seemed the worst danger, though he could not 
take it in for the first minute. This was the waiter, 
Sergey Nikanoritch, who was standing in the door- 
way with the reckoning beads in his hands, very 
pale, looking with horror at what was happening 
in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went 
quickly into the passage and from there outside, 
Yakov grasped who it was and followed him. 
Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he 
reflected. The idea flashed through his mind that 
their labourer had gone away long before and had 
asked leave to stay the night at home in the village; 
the day before they had killed a pig, and there were 
huge bloodstains in the snow and on the sledge, and 
even one side of the top of the well was spattered 
with blood, so that it could not have seemed suspi- 
cious even if the whole of Yakov’s family had been 
stained with blood. To conceal the murder would 
be agonizing, but for the policeman, who would 
whistle and smile ironically, to come from the station, 
for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov’s and 
Aglaia’s hands, and take them solemnly to the dis- 
trict courthouse and from there to the town, while 
everyone on the way would point at them and say 
mirthfully, ‘‘ They are taking the Godlies! ’’ — this 
seemed to Yakov more agonizing than anything, and 
he longed to lengthen out the time somehow, so as 
to endure this shame not now, but later, in the future. 
“I can lend you a’ thousand roubles, . - .” he 
said, overtaking Sergey Nikanoritch. “If you tell 
anyone, it will do no good. . . . There’s no bring- 
ing the man back, anyway; ”’ and with difficulty keep- 
ing up with the waiter, who did not look round, but 


The Murder 123 


tried to walk away faster than ever, he went on: “I 
can eive you ftteen hundred. 2). 2) 

He stopped because he was out of breath, while 
Sergey Nikanoritch walked on as quickly as ever, 
probably afraid that he would be killed, too. Only 
after passing the railway crossing and going half 
the way from the crossing to the station, he furtively 
looked round and walked more slowly. Lights, red 
and green, were already gleaming in the station and 
along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes of 
snow were still coming down and the road had turned 
white again. But just at the station Sergey Nikano- 
ritch stopped, thought a minute, and turned reso- 
lutely back. It was growing dark. 

‘ Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivan- 
itch,” he said, trembling all over. ‘‘ I agree.” 


VI 


Yakov Ivanitch’s money was in the bank of the 
town and was invested in second mortgages; he 
only kept a little at home, just what was wanted 
for necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen, he 
felt for the matchbox, and while the sulphur was 
burning with a blue light he had time to make out 
the figure of Matvey, which was still lying on the 
floor near the table, but now it was covered with a 
white sheet, and nothing could be seen but his boots. 
A cricket was chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka 
were not in the room, they were both sitting behind 
the counter in the tea-room, spinning yarn in silence. 
Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little 


124 The Tales of Chekhov 


lamp in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a 
little box in which he kept his money. This time 
there were in it four hundred and twenty-one rouble 
notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five roubles; 
the notes had an unpleasant heavy smell. Putting 
the money together in his cap, Yakov Ivanitch went 
out into the yard and then out of the gate. He 
walked looking from side to side, but there was no 
sign of the waiter. 

Sh veried)| Vakov: 

A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the 
railway crossing and came irresolutely towards him. 

‘Why do you keep walking about?’ said Yakov 
with vexation, as he recognized the waiter. “ Here 
you are; there is a little less than five hundred. . . . 
I’ve no more in the house.” 

Very wells) :) i.) very ‘oraterul) to) you, mut. 
tered Sergey Nikanoritch, taking the money greedily 
and stuffing it into his pockets. He was trembling 
all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the 
darkness. ‘‘ Don’t worry yourself, Yakov Ivan- 
itchy) Okc What should il) chatter) fore jl jeame 
and went away, that’s all I’ve to do with it. As 
the saying is, I know nothing and I can tell nothing. 
. .. And at once he added with a sigh: “ Cursed 
life? 

For a minute they stood in silence, without look- 
ing at each other. 

“So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows 
how, . . .” said the waiter, trembling. ‘I was sit- 
ting counting to myself when all at once a noise. . . . 
I looked through the door, and just on account of 
Lenten oil you . . . Where is he now?” 


The Murder 125 


‘ Lying there in the kitchen.” 

‘You ought to take him away somewhere... . . 
Why put it off?” 

Yakov accompanied him to the station without a 
word, then went home again and harnessed the horse 
to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had decided to 
take him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him 
there on the road, and then he would tell everyone 
that Matvey had gone off to Vedenyapino and had 
not come back, and then everybody would think that 
he had been killed by someone on the road. He 
knew there was no deceiving anyone by this, but to 
move, to do something, to be active was not so 
agonizing as to sit still and wait. He called Da- 
shutka, and with her carried Matvey out. Aglaia 
stayed behind to clean up the kitchen. 

When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were 
detained at the railway crossing by the barrier being 
let down. <A long goods train was passing, dragged 
by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging puffs 
of crimson fire out of their funnels. 

The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at 
the crossing in sight of the station. 

‘“Tt’s whistling, . . .”” said Dashutka. 

The train had passed at last, and the signalman 
lifted the barrier without haste. 

“Ts that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn’t know 
you, so you'll be rich.” 

And then when they had reached home they had 
to go to bed. 

Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in 
the tea-room and lay down side by side, while Yakov 
stretched himself on the counter. ‘They neither said 


126 The Tales of Chekhov 


their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before lying 
down to sleep. All three lay awake till morning, 
but did not utter a single word, and it seemed to them 
that all night someone was walking about in the 
empty storey overhead. 

Two days later a police inspector and the examin- 
ing magistrate came from the town and made a 
search, first in Matvey’s room and then in the whole 
tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and 
he testified that on the Monday Matvey had gone 
to Vedenyapino to confess, and that he must have 
been killed by the sawyers who were working on the 
line: 

And when the examining magistrate had asked 
him how it had happened that Matvey was found 
on the road, while his cap had turned up at home 
— surely he had not gone to Vedenyapino without 
his cap? —and why they had not found a single 
drop of blood beside him in the snow on the road, 
though his head was smashed in and his face and 
chest were black with blood, Yakov was confused, 
lost his head and answered: 

\ Licannotitells’) 

And just what Yakov had so feared happened: 
the policeman came, the district police oficer smoked 
in the prayer-room, and Aglaia fell upon him with 
abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and after- 
wards when Yakov and Aglaia were led out of the 
yard, the peasants crowded at the gates and said, 
‘ They are taking the Godlies!”’ and it seemed that 
they were all glad. 

At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that 


The Murder 127 


Yakov and Aglaia had killed Matvey in order not 
to share with him, and that Matvey had money of 
his own, and that if it was not found at the search 
evidently Yakov and Aglaia had got hold of it. And 
Dashutka was questioned. She said that Uncle Mat- 
vey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled and almost fought 
every day over money, and that Uncle Matvey was 
rich, so much so that he had given someone — “ his 
Darling ’”’ — nine hundred roubles. 

Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one 
came now to drink tea or vodka, and she divided 
her time between cleaning up the rooms, drinking 
mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they 
questioned the signalman at the railway crossing, 
and he said that late on Monday evening he had 
seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo. 
Dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to the town and 
put in prison. It soon became known, from what 
Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch had been 
present at the murder. A search was made in his 
room, and money was found in an unusual place, in 
his snowboots under the stove, and the money was 
all in small change, three hundred one-rouble notes. 
We swore he had made this money himself, and that 
he hadn’t been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses 
testified that he was poor and had been in great 
want of money of late, and that he used to go every 
day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the 
policeman described how on the day of the murder 
he had himself gone twice to the tavern with the 
waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled at 
this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Ni- 


128 The Tales of Chekhov 


kanoritch had not been there to meet the passenger 
train, but had gone off somewhere. And he, too, 
was arrested and taken to the town. 

The trial took place eleven months later. 

Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thin- 
ner, and spoke in a low voice like a sick man. He 
felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature than anyone else, 
and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his body, 
had grown older and wasted, from the pangs of his 
conscience and from the dreams and imaginings 
which never left him all the while he was in prison. 
When it came out that he did not go to church the 
president of the court asked him: 

este Woulla dissenter). 

‘““T can’t tell,” he answered. 

He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing 
and understood nothing; and his old belief was hate- 
ful to him now, and seemed to him darkness and 
folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and she 
still went on abusing the dead man, blaming him for 
all their misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch had 
grown a beard instead of whiskers. At the trial he 
was red and perspiring, and was evidently ashamed 
of his grey prison coat and of sitting on the same 
bench with humble peasants. He defended himself 
awkwardly, and, trying to prove that he had not been 
to the tavern for a whole year, got into an altercation 
with every witness, and the spectators laughed at 
him. Dashutka had grown fat in prison. At the 
trial she did not understand the questions put to her, 
and only said that when they killed Uncle Matvey 
she was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she 
did not mind. 


The Murder 129 


All four were found guilty of murder with mer- 
cenary motives. Yakov Ivanitch was sentenced to 
penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia for thirteen 
and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to 
SIX. 


VII 


Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in 
the roads of Dué in Sahalin and asked for coal. 
The captain was asked to wait till morning, but he 
did not want to wait over an hour, saying that if the 
weather changed for the worse in the night there 
would be a risk of his having to go off without coal. 
In the Gulf of Tartary the weather is liable to vio- 
lent changes in the course of half an hour, and then 
the shores of Sahalin are dangerous. And already 
it had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea 
running. 

A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from 
the Voevodsky Prison, the grimmest and most for- 
bidding of all the prisons in Sahalin. The coal had 
to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be 
towed by a steam-cutter alongside the steamer which 
was anchored more than a quarter of a mile from 
the coast, and then the unloading and reloading had 
to begin — an exhausting task when the barge kept 
rocking against the steamer and the men could 
scarcely keep on their legs for sea-sickness. ‘The 
convicts, only just roused from their sleep, still 
drowsy, went along the shore, stumbling in the dark- 
ness and clanking their fetters. On the left, scarcely 
visible, was a tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking 


130 The Tales of Chekhov 


cliff, while on the right there was a thick impenetrable 
mist, in which the sea moaned with a prolonged 
monotonous, sounds) (Alb Neal iwi malilsnuants 
ah! ...” And it was only when the overseer was 
lighting his pipe, casting as he did so a passing ray 
of light on the escort with a gun and on the coarse 
faces of two or three of the nearest convicts, or when 
he went with his lantern close to the water that the 
white crests of the foremost waves could be dis- 
cerned. 

One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed 
among the convicts the ‘‘ Brush,” on account of his 
long beard. No one had addressed him by his name 
or his father’s name for a long time now; they called 
him simply Yashka. 

He was here in disgrace, as, three months after 
coming to Siberia, feeling an intense irresistible long- 
ing for home, he had succumbed to temptation and 
run away; he had soon been caught, had been sen- 
tenced to penal servitude for life and given forty 
lashes. Then he was punished by flogging twice 
again for losing his prison clothes, though on each 
occasion they were stolen from him. The longing 
for home had begun from the very time he had been 
brought to Odessa, and the convict train had stopped 
in the night at Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to 
the window, had tried to see his own home, and could 
see nothing in the darkness. He had no one with 
whom to talk of home. His sister Aglaia had been 
sent right across Siberia, and he did not know where 
she was now. Dashutka was in Sahalin, but she had 
been sent to live with some ex-convict in a far-away 
settlement; there was no news of her except that once 


The Murder 131 


a settler who had come to the Voevodsky Prison told 
Yakov that Dashutka had three children. Sergey 
Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at a govern- 
ment official’s at Dué, but he could not reckon on 
ever seeing him, as he was ashamed of being ac- 
quainted with convicts of the peasant class. 

The gang reached the mine, and the men took 
their places on the quay. It was said there would 
not be any loading, as the weather kept getting 
worse and the steamer was meaning to set off. They 
could see three lights. One of them was moving: 
that was the steam-cutter going to the steamer, and 
it seemed to be coming back to tell them whether 
the work was to be done or not. Shivering with 
the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping 
himself in his short torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked 
intently without blinking in the direction in which 
lay his home. Ever since he had lived in prison 
together with men banished here from all ends of 
the earth— with Russians, Ukrainians, ‘Tatars, 
Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews — and ever since 
he had listened to their talk and watched their suf- 
ferings, he had begun to turn again to God, and it 
seemed to him at last that he had learned the true 
faith for which all his family, from his grandmother 
Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had 
sought so long and which they had never found. 
He knew it all now and understood where God was, 
and how He was to be served, and the only thing 
he could not understand was why men’s destinies 
were so diverse, why this simple faith which other 
men receive from God for nothing and together with 
their lives, had cost him such a price that his arms 


120 The Tales of Chekhov 


and legs trembled like a drunken man’s from all the 
horrors and agonies which as far as he could see 
would go on without a break to the day of his death. 
He looked with strained eyes into the darkness, and 
it seemed to him that through the thousand miles 
of that mist he could see home, could see his native 
province, his district, Progonnaya, could see the 
darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and the 
dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men he had 
left there. His eyes were dimmed with tears; but 
still he gazed into the distance where the pale lights 
of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached 
with yearning for home, and he longed to live, to 
go back home to tell them there of his new faith 
and to save from ruin if only one man, and to live 
without suffering if only for one day. 

The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in 
a loud voice that there would be no loading. 

‘Back ly) (hey commanded. |) Steady !)7 

They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain 
on the steamer. A strong piercing wind was blow- 
ing by now; somewhere on the steep cliff overhead 
the trees were creaking. Most likely a storm was 
coming. 


UPROOTED 





UPROOTED 


AN INCIDENT OF MY TRAVELS 


I wAs on my way back from evening service. The 
clock in the belfry of the Svyatogorsky Monastery 
pealed out its soft melodious chimes by way of pre- 
lude and then struck twelve. The great courtyard 
of the monastery stretched out at the foot of the 
Holy Mountains on the banks of the Donets, and, 
enclosed by the high hostel buildings as by a wall, 
seemed now in the night, when it was lighted up only 
by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the 
stars, a living hotch-potch full of movement, sound, 
and the most original confusion. From end to end, 
so far as the eye could see, it was all choked up with 
carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt- 
carts, about which stood crowds of horses, dark and 
white, and horned oxen, while people bustled about, 
and black long-skirted lay brothers threaded their 
way in and out in all directions. Shadows and 
streaks of light cast from the windows moved over 
the carts and the heads of men and horses, and in 
the dense twilight this all assumed the most mon- 
strous capricious shapes: here the tilted shafts 
stretched upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire ap- 
peared in the face of a horse, there a lay brother 
grew a pair of black wings. . . . There was the 
noise of talk, the snorting and munching of horses, 
135 


136 The Tales of Chekhov 


the creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. 
Fresh crowds kept walking in at the gate and belated 
carts drove up. 

The pines which were piled up on the overhanging 
mountain, one above another, and leaned towards 
the roof of the hostel, gazed into the courtyard as 
into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark 
thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased 
calling. . . . Looking at the confusion, listening to 
the uproar, one fancied that in this living hotch-potch 
no one understood anyone, that everyone was look- 
ing for something and would not find it, and that 
this multitude of carts, chaises and human beings 
could not ever succeed in getting off. 

More than ten thousand people flocked to the 
Holy Mountains for the festivals of St. John the 
Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker. Not 
only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, 
the tailoring room, the carpenter’s shop, the carriage 
house, were filled to overflowing. . . . Those who 
had arrived towards night clustered like flies in 
autumn, by the walls, round the wells in the yard, 
or in the narrow passages of the hostel, waiting 
to be shown a resting-place for the night. The lay 
brothers, young and old, were in an incessant move- 
ment, with no rest or hope of being relieved. By 
day or late at night they produced the same impres- 
sion of men hastening somewhere and agitated by 
something, yet, in spite of their extreme exhaustion, 
their faces remained full of courage and kindly 
welcome, their voices friendly, their movements 
rapid. . . . For everyone who came they had to 
find a place to sleep, and to provide food and drink; 


Uprooted 137 


to those who were deaf, slow to understand, or pro- 
fuse in questions, they had to give long and weari- 
some explanations, to tell them why there were no 
empty rooms, at what o’clock the service was to be, 
where holy bread was sold, and so on. They had 
to run, to carry, to talk incessantly, but more than 
that, they had to be polite, too, to be tactful, to 
try to arrange that the Greeks from Mariupol, ac- 
customed to live more comfortably than the Little 
Russians, should be put with other Greeks, that some 
shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed 
like a lady, should not be offended by being put with 
peasants. There were continual cries of: ‘‘ Father, 
kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us some 
hay!” or “‘ Father, may I drink water after con- 
fession?’’ And the lay brother would have to give 
out kvass or hay or to answer: ‘“‘ Address yourself 
to the priest, my good woman, we have not the 
authority to give permission.’”’ Another question 
would follow, ‘“‘ Where is the priest then?” and the 
lay brother would have to explain where was the 
priest’s cell. With all this bustling activity, he yet 
had to make time to go to service in the church, 
to serve in the part devoted to the gentry, and to 
give full answers to the mass of necessary and un- 
necessary questions which pilgrims of the educated 
class are fond of showering about them. Watching 
them during the course of twenty-four hours, I found 
it hard to imagine when these black moving figures 
sat down and when they slept. 

When, coming back from the evening service, I 
went to the hostel in which a place had been assigned 
me, the monk in charge of the sleeping quarters was 


138 The Tales of Chekhov 


standing in the doorway, and beside him, on the 
steps, was a group of several men and women dressed 
like townsfolk. 

‘Sir,”’ said the monk, stopping me, ‘will you 
be so good as to allow this young man to pass the 
night in your room? If you would do us the favour! 
There are so many people and no place left — it 
is really dreadful! ” 

And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat 
and a straw hat. I consented, and my chance com- 
panion followed me. Unlocking the little padlock 
on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to or 
not, obliged to look at the picture that hung on the 
doorpost on a level with my face. This picture 
with the title, ‘‘ A Meditation on Death,” depicted 
a monk on his knees, gazing at a coffin and at a 
skeleton laying in it. Behind the man’s back stood 
another skeleton, somewhat more solid and carrying 
a scythe. 

“There are no bones like that,” said my com- 
panion, pointing to the place in the skeleton where 
there ought to have been a pelvis. ‘“ Speaking gen- 
erally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the 
people is not of the first quality,” he added, and 
heaved through his nose a long and very melancholy 
sigh, meant to show me that I had to do with a 
man who really knew something about spiritual fare. 

While I was looking for the matches to light a 
candle he sighed once more and said: 

“When I was in Harkov I went several times 
to the anatomy theatre and saw the bones there; I 
have even been in the mortuary. Am I not in your 
way?” 


Uprooted 1329 


My room was small and poky, with neither table 
nor chairs in it, but quite filled up with a chest of 
drawers by the window, the stove and two little 
wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing 
one another, leaving a narrow space to walk between 
them. ‘Thin rusty-looking little mattresses lay on 
the little sofas, as well as my belongings. There 
were two sofas, so this room was evidently intended 
for two, and I pointed out the fact to my companion. 

“They will soon be ringing for mass, though,” 
he said, ‘‘ and I shan’t have to be in your way very 
long.” 

Still under the impression that he was in my way, 
and feeling awkward, he moved with a guilty step 
to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and sat down. 
When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame 
had left off flickering and burned up sufficiently to 
make us both visible, I could make out what he was 
like. He was a young man of two-and-twenty, with 
a round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes, 
dressed like a townsman in grey cheap clothes, and 
as one could judge from his complexion and narrow 
shoulders, not used to manual labour. He was of 
a very indefinite type; one could take him neither for 
a student nor for a man in trade, still less for a 
workman. But looking at his attractive face and 
childlike friendly eyes, I was unwilling to believe he 
was one of those vagabond impostors with whom 
every conventual establishment where they give food 
and lodging is flooded, and who give themselves out 
as divinity students, expelled for standing up for 
justice, or for church singers who have lost their 
voice... . There was something characteristic, 


140 The Tales of Chekhov 


typical, very familiar in his face, but what exactly, I 
could not remember nor make out. 

For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Prob- 
ably because I had not shown appreciation of his re- 
marks about bones and the mortuary, he thought that 
I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence. 
Pulling a sausage out of his pocket, he turned it 
about before his eyes and said irresolutely : 

““Fxcuse my troubling you, ... have you a 
lenirere 7 

I gave him a knife. 

‘“The sausage is disgusting,’ he said, frowning 
and cutting himself off a little bit. ‘‘ In the shop 
here they sell you rubbish and fleece you horribly. 
. .. 1 would offer you a piece, but you would 
scarcely care to consume it. Will you have some?” 

In his language, too, there was something typical 
that had a very great deal in common with what was 
characteristic in his face, but what it was exactly 
I still could not decide. To inspire confidence and 
to show that I was not ill-humoured, I took some of 
the proffered sausage. It certainly was horrible; 
one needed the teeth of a good house-dog to deal 
with it. As we worked our jaws we got into conver- 
sation; we began complaining to each other of the 
lengthiness of the service. 

“The rule here approaches that of Mount 
Athos,” I said; ‘“‘ but at Athos the night services 
last ten hours, and on great feast-days — fourteen! 
You should go there for prayers! ” 

“Yes,” answered my companion, and he wagged 
his head, ‘‘ I have been here for three weeks. And 
you know, every day services, every day services. 


Uprooted 141 


On ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, 
at five o’clock for early mass, at nine o’clock for 
late mass. Sleep is utterly out of the question. In 
the daytime there are hymns of praise, special 
prayers, vespers. . . . And when I was preparing 
for the sacrament I was simply dropping from ex- 
haustion.”” He sighed and went on: ‘“ And it’s awk- 
ward not to go to church. . . . The monks give 
one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed 
not to go. One wouldn’t mind standing it for a 
day or two, perhaps, but three weeks is too much 
—much too much! Are you here for long? ” 

“IT am going to-morrow evening.” 

‘But I am staying another fortnight.” 

“But I thought it was not the rule to stay for 
so long here?” I said. 

“Yes, that’s true: if anyone stays too long, 
sponging on the monks, he is asked to go. Judge 
for yourself, if the proletariat were allowed to 
stay on here as long as they liked there would never 
be a room vacant, and they would eat up the whole 
monastery. ‘That’s true. But the monks make an 
exception for me, and I hope they won’t turn me out 
for some time. You know I ama convert.” 

a Low mean?” 

“Iam a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have 
embraced orthodoxy.” 

Now I understood what I had before been utterly 
unable to understand from his face: his thick lips, 
and his way of twitching up the right corner of his 
mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, 
and that peculiar oily brilliance of his eyes which 
is only found in Jews. I understood, too, his phrase- 


142 The Tales of Chekhov 


ology. . . . From further conversation I learned 
that his name was Alexandr Ivanitch, and had in 
the past been Isaac, that he was a native of the 
Mogilev province, and that he had come to the Holy 
Mountains from Novotcherkassk, where he had 
adopted the orthodox faith. 

Having finished his sausage, Alexandr Ivanitch 
got up, and, raising his. right eyebrow, said his 
prayer before the ikon. The eyebrow remained up 
when he sat down again on the little sofa and be- 
gan giving me a brief account of his long biogra- 
phy. 

‘“From early childhood I cherished a love for 
learning,” he began in a tone which suggested he 
was not speaking of himself, but of some great man 
of the past. ‘“‘ My parents were poor Hebrews; 
they exist by buying and selling in a small way; 
they live like beggars, you know, in filth. In fact, 
all the people there are poor and superstitious; they 
don’t like education, because education, ° very 
naturally, turns a man away from religion... . 
They are fearful fanatics. . . . Nothing would in- 
duce my parents to let me be educated, and they 
wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing 
but the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not 
everyone who can spend his whole life struggling 
for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and mumbling 
the Talmud. At times officers and country gentle- 
men would put up at papa’s inn, and they used to 
talk a great deal of things which in those days I had 
never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring 
and moved me to envy. I used to cry and entreat 
_ them to send me to school, but they taught me to 


Uprooted 143 


read Hebrew and nothing more. Once I found a 
Russian newspaper, and took it home with me to 
make a kite of it. I was beaten for it, though I 
couldn’t read Russian. Of course, fanaticism is in- 
evitable, for every people instinctively strives to pre- 
serve its nationality, but I did not know that then 
and was very indignant. . . .” 

Having made such an intellectual observation, 
Isaac, as he had been, raised his right eyebrow higher 
than ever in his satisfaction and looked at me, as it 
were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn, with 
an air as though he would say: ‘‘ Now at last you 
see for certain that I am an intellectual man, don’t 
you?”’ After saying something more about fanati- 
cism and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment, 
he went on: 

“What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk. 
And there I had a cousin who relined saucepans and 
made tins. Of course, I was glad to work under 
him, as I had nothing to live upon; I was barefoot 
and in rags. . . . I thought I could work by day 
and study at night and on Saturdays. And so I did, 
but the police found out I had no passport and sent 
me back by stages to my father. . . .” 

Alexandr Ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and 
sighed. 

‘“ What was one to do?” he went on, and the 
more vividly the past rose up before his mind, the 
more marked his Jewish accent became. ‘‘ My 
parents punished me and handed me over to my 
grandfather, a fanatical old Jew, to be reformed. 
But I went off at night to Shklov. And when my 
uncle tried to catch me in Shkloy, I went off to Mogi- 


144 The Tales of Chekhov 


lev; there I stayed two days and then I went off to 
Starodub with a comrade.”’ 

Later on he mentioned in his story Gonel, Kiev, 
Byelaya, Tserkov, Uman, Balt, Bendery and at last 
reached Odessa. 

‘In Odessa I wandered about for a whole week, 
out of work and hungry, till I was taken in by some 
Jews who went about the town buying second-hand 
clothes. I knew how to read and write by then, 
and had done arithmetic up to fractions, and I 
wanted to go to study somewhere, but I had not 
the means. What was I to do? For six months 
I went about Odessa buying old clothes, but the 
Jews paid me no wages, the rascals. I resented 
it iand left\'them:')/Mhen))T\went) by steamer ite 
Perekop.”’ 

Wu hat for ti 

“Oh, nothing. A Greek promised me a job 
there. In short, till I was sixteen I wandered about 
like that with no definite work and no roots till I 
got to Poltava. There a student, a Jew, found out 
that I wanted to study, and gave me a letter to the 
Harkov students. Of course, I went to Harkov. 
The students consulted together and began to pre- 
pare me for the technical school. And, you know, I 
must say the students that I met there were such that 
I shall never forget them to the day of my death. 
To say nothing of their giving me food and lodging, 
they set me on the right path, they made me think, 
showed me the object of life. Among them were 
intellectual remarkable people who by now are cele- 
brated. For instance, you have heard of Grumaher, 
haven’t you? ”’ 

HuNo, di haven't.” 


Uprooted 145 


‘“You haven’t! He wrote very clever articles in 
the Harkov Gazette, and was preparing to be a pro- 
fessor. Well, I read a great deal and attended the 
student’s societies, where you hear nothing that is 
commonplace. I was working up for six months, 
but as one has to have been through the whole high- 
school course of mathematics to enter the technical 
school, Grumaher advised me to try for the veteri- 
nary institute, where they admit high-school boys 
from the sixth form. Of course, I began working 
for it. I did not want to be a veterinary surgeon, 
but they told me that after finishing the course at 
the veterinary institute I should be admitted to the 
faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt 
all Kiihner; I could read Cornelius Nepos, a4 livre 
ouvert; and in Greek I read through almost all Cur- 
tius. But, you know, one thing and another, .. . 
the students leaving and the uncertainty of my po- 
sition, and then I heard that my mamma had come 
and was looking for me all over Harkov. Then I 
went away. What was I to do? But luckily I 
learned that there was a school of mines here on 
the Donets line. Why should I not enter that? 
You know the school of mines qualifies one as a 
mining foreman—a splendid berth. I know of 
mines where the foremen get a salary of fifteen hun- 
drediaiyear.) \Capital.\...'.) 5) L enteredisiesyuenns: 

With an expression of reverent awe on his face, 
Alexandr Ivanitch enumerated some two dozen 
abstruse sciences in which instruction was given at 
the school of mines; he described the school itself, 
the construction of the shafts, and the condition of 
the miners. . . . Then he told me a terrible story 


146 The Tales of Chekhov 


which sounded like an invention, though I could not 
help believing it, for his tone in telling it was too 
genuine and the expression of horror on his Semitic 
face was too evidently sincere. 

‘While I was doing the practical work, I had 
such an accident one day!” he said, raising both 
eyebrows. ‘“‘I was at a mine here in the Donets 
district. You have seen, I dare say, how people are 
let down into the mine. You remember when they 
start the horse and set the gates moving one bucket 
on the pulley goes down into the mine, while the 
other comes up; when the first begins to come up, 
then the second goes down — exactly like a well 
with two pails. Well, one day I got into the bucket, 
began going down, and can you fancy, all at once I 
heard, Trrr! The chain had broken and I flew 
to the devil together with the bucket and the broken 
bityotiichamn. 4.0.) W) fell) irom a) heightof twenGy 
feet, flat on my chest and stomach, while the bucket, 
being heavier, reached the bottom before me, and I 
hit this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you 
know, stunned. I thought I was killed, and all at 
once [ saw a fresh calamity: the other bucket, which 
was going up, having lost the counter-balancing 
weight, was coming down with a crash straight upon 
me... What) was) lito dor) Seeing) the) position, 
I squeezed closer to the wall, crouching and waiting 
for the bucket to come full crush next minute on my 
head. I thought of papa and mamma and Mogilev 
and Grumaher. |). 2) Dioprayed!) io). (But happily, 

. it frightens me even to think of it. . . .” 

Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and 


rubbed his forehead with his hand. 


Uprooted 147 


‘But happily it fell beside me and only caught 
this side a little. . . . It tore off coat, shirt and skin, 
you know, from this side. . . . The force of it was 
terrific. I was unconscious after it. They got me 
out and sent me to the hospital. J was there four 
months, and the doctors there said I should go into 
consumption. I always have a cough now and a 
pain in my chest. And my psychic condition is ter- 
rible. . . . When I am alone ina room I feel over- 
come with terror. Of course, with my health in 
that state, to be a mining foreman is out of the ques- 
tion. I had to give up the school of mines. . . .” 

‘“ And what are you doing now?” I asked. 

‘“T have passed my examination as a village school- 
master. Now I belong to the orthodox church, and 
I have a right to be a teacher. In Novotcherkassk, 
where I was baptized, they took a great interest in 
me and promised me a place in a church parish 
school. JI am going there in a fortnight, and shall 
ask again.” 

Alexandr Ivanitch took off his overcoat and re- 
mained in a shirt with an embroidered Russian collar 
and a worsted belt. 

‘It is time for bed,” he said, folding his over- 
coat for a pillow, and yawning. “Till lately, you 
know, I had no knowledge of God at all. I was 
an atheist. When I was lying in the hospital I 
thought of religion, and began reflecting on that 
subject. In my opinion, there is only one religion 
possible for a thinking man, and that is the Christian 
religion. If you don’t believe in Christ, then there 
is nothing else to believe in, . . . is there? Juda- 
ism has outlived its day, and is preserved only owing 


148 The Tales of Chekhov 


to the peculiarities of the Jewish race. When civi- 
lization reaches the Jews there will not be a trace of 
Judaism left. All young Jews are atheists now, ob- 
serve. ‘The New Testament is the natural continua- 
tion of the Old, isn’t it?” 

I began trying to find out the reasons which had 
led him to take so grave and bold a step as the 
change of religion, but he kept repeating the same, 
“The New Testament is the natural continuation of 
the Old” —a formula obviously not his own, but 
acquired — which did not explain the question in the 
least. In spite of my efforts and artifices, the rea- 
sons remained obscure. If one could believe that 
he had embraced Orthodoxy from conviction, as he 
said he had done, what was the nature and founda- 
tion of this conviction it was impossible to grasp from 
his words. It was equally impossible to assume that 
he had changed his religion from interested motives: 
his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the 
expense of the convent, and the uncertainty of his fu- 
ture, did not look like interested motives. There 
was nothing for it but to accept the idea that my 
companion had been impelled to change his religion 
by the same restless spirit which had flung him like 
a chip of wood from town to town, and which he, 
using the generally accepted formula, called the crav- 
ing for enlightenment. 

Before going to bed I went into the corridor to 
get a drink of water. When I came back my com- 
panion was standing in the middle of the room, and 
he looked at me with a scared expression. His face 
looked a greyish white, and there were drops of 
perspiration on his forehead. 


_Uprooted 149 


‘“‘ My nerves are in an awful state,’ he muttered, 
with a sickly smile, ‘‘ awful! It’s acute psychologi- 
cal disturbance. But that’s of no consequence.” 

And he began reasoning again that the New Testa- 
ment was a natural continuation of the Old, that 
Judaism has outlived its day. . . . Picking out his 
phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the 
forces of his conviction and to smother with them 
the uneasiness of his soul, and to prove to himself 
that in giving up the religion of his fathers he had 
done nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had acted as a 
thinking man free from prejudice, and that therefore 
he could boldly remain in a room all alone with his 
conscience. He was trying to convince himself, and 
with his eyes besought my assistance. 

Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on 
our tallow candle. It was by now getting light. At 
the gloomy little window, which was turning blue, we 
could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River 
and the oak copse beyond the river. It was time to 
sleep. 

‘Tt will be very interesting here to-morrow,”’ said 
my companion when I put out the candle and went 
to bed. ‘“‘ After early mass, the procession will go 
in boats from the Monastery to the Hermitage.” 

Raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on 
one side, he prayed before the ikons, and, without 
undressing, lay down on his little sofa. 

“Yes,” he said, turning over on the other side. 

a Vinge vyes' iP? I asked. 

“When I accepted orthodoxy in Novotcherkassk 
my mother was looking for me in Rostov. She felt 
that I meant to change my religion,” he sighed, and 


150 The Tales of Chekhov 


went on: “It is six years since I was there in the 
province of Mogilev. My sister must be married 
by now.” 

After a short silence, seeing that I was still awake, 
he began talking quietly of how they soon, thank 
God, would give him a job, and that at last he would 
have a home of his own, a settled position, his daily 
bread secure. . . . And I was thinking that this man 
would never have a home of his own, nor a settled 
position, nor his daily bread secure. He dreamed 
aloud of a village school as of the Promised Land; 
like the majority of people, he had a prejudice 
against a wandering life, and regarded it as some- 
thing exceptional, abnormal and accidental, like an 
illness, and was looking for salvation in ordinary 
workaday life. ‘The tone of his voice betrayed that 
he was conscious of his abnormal position and re- 
gretted it. He seemed as it were apologizing and 
justifying himself. 

Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless 
wanderer; in the rooms of the hostels and by the 
carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims some hun- 
dreds of such homeless wanderers were waiting for 
the morning, and further away, if one could picture 
to oneself the whole of Russia, a vast multitude of 
such uprooted creatures was pacing at that moment 
along highroads and side-tracks, seeking something 
better, or were waiting for the dawn, asleep in way- 
side inns and little taverns, or on the grass under 
the open sky. . . . As I fell asleep I imagined how 
amazed and perhaps even overjoyed all these people 
would have been if reasoning and words could be 
found to prove to them that their life was as little 


Uprooted 151 


in need of justification as any other. In my sleep I 
heard a bell ring outside as plaintively as though 
shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling out 
several times: 

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon 
us! Come to mass!”’ 

When I woke up my companion was not in the 
room. It was sunny and there was a murmur of 
the crowds through the window. Going out, I 
learned that mass was over and that the procession 
had set off for the Hermitage some time before. 
The people were wandering in crowds upon the river 
bank and, feeling at liberty, did not know what to do 
with themselves: they could not eat or drink, as the 
late mass was not yet over at the Hermitage; the 
Monastery shops where pilgrims are so fond of 
crowding and asking prices were still shut. In spite 
of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer bore- 
dom were trudging to the Hermitage. The path 
from the Monastery to the Hermitage, towards 
which I directed my steps, twined like a snake along 
the high steep bank, going up and down and thread- 
ing in and out among the oaks and pines. Below, the 
Donets gleamed, reflecting the sun; above, the rugged 
chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on the 
top from the young foliage of oaks and pines, which, 
hanging one above another, managed somehow to 
grow on the vertical cliff without falling. The pil- 
grims trailed along the path in single file, one behind 
another. The majority of them were Little Rus- 
sians from the neighbouring districts, but there were 
many from a distance, too, who had come on foot 
from the provinces of Kursk and Orel; in the long 


Insp The Tales of Chekhov 


string of varied colours there were Greek settlers, 
too, from Mariupol, strongly built, sedate and 
friendly people, utterly unlike their weakly and de- 
generate compatriots who fill our southern seaside 
towns. There were men from the Donets, too, with 
red stripes on their breeches, and emigrants from the 
Tavritchesky province. ‘There were a good many 
pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my Alexandr 
Ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where 
they came from it was impossible to tell from their 
faces, from their clothes, or from their speech. ‘The 
path ended at the little landing-stage, from which 
a narrow road went to the left to the Hermitage, cut- 
ting its way through the mountain. At the landing- 
stage stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding 
‘aspect, like the New Zealand pirogues which one 
may see in the works of Jules Verne. One boat with 
rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy and the 
singers, the other without rugs for the public. When 
the procession was returning I found myself among 
the elect who had succeeded in squeezing themselves 
into the second. ‘There were so many of the elect 
that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all 
the way without stirring and to be careful that one’s 
_hat was not crushed. The route was lovely. Both 
banks — one high, steep and white, with overhang- 
ing pines and oaks, with the crowds hurrying back 
along the path, and the other shelving, with green 
meadows and an oak copse bathed in sunshine — 
looked as happy and rapturous as though the May 
morning owed its charm only to them. ‘The reflec- 
tion of the sun in the rapidly flowing Donets quiv- 
ered and raced away in all directions, and its long 


Uprooted Mt) 


rays played on the chasubles, on the banners and on 
the drops splashed up by the oars. The singing of 
the Easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash 
of the oars in the water, the calls of the birds, all 
mingled in the air into something tender and har- 
monious. The boat with the priests and the ban- 
ners led the way; at its helm the black figure of a 
lay brother stood motionless as a statue. 

When the procession was getting near the Mon- 
astery, I noticed Alexandr Ivanitch among the elect. 
He was standing in front of them all, and, his mouth 
wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow cocked 
up, was gazing at the procession. His face was 
beaming; probably at such moments, when there were 
so many people round him and it was so bright, he 
was satisfied with himself, his new religion, and his 
conscience. 

When a little later we were sitting in our room, 
drinking tea, he still beamed with satisfaction; his 
face showed that he was satisfied both with the tea 
and with me, that he fully appreciated my being 
‘““an intellectual,” but that he would know how to 
play his a with credit if any intellectual topic 
turned up. 

oliellime, set psychology ought I to read) me 
began an intellectual conversation, wrinkling up his 
nose. 

“Why, what do you want it for?” 

“One cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of 
psychology. Before teaching a boy I ought to under- 
stand his soul.” 

I told him that psychology alone would not be 
enough to make one understand a boy’s soul, and 


154 The Tales of Chekhov 


moreover psychology for a teacher who had not yet 
mastered the technical methods of instruction in read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic would be a luxury as 
superfluous as the higher mathematics. He readily 
agreed with me, and began describing how hard and 
responsible was the task of a teacher, how hard it 
was to eradicate in the boy the habitual tendency 
to evil and superstition, to make him think honestly 
and independently, to instil into him true religion, 
the ideas of personal dignity, of freedom, and so on. 
In answer to this I said something to him. 
He agreed again. He agreed very readily, in fact. 
Obviously his brain had not a very firm grasp of all 
these ‘‘ intellectual subjects.” 

Up to the time of my departure we strolled to- 
gether about the Monastery, whiling away the long 
hot day. He never left my side a minute; whether 
he had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude, 
God only knows! I remember we sat together un- 
der a clump of yellow acacia in one of the little gar- 
dens that are scattered on the mountain side. 

ane leaving here in a fortnight, ” he said; 
is high time.’ 

‘“ Are you going on foot?” 

“From here to Slavyansk I shall walk, then by 
railway to Nikitovka; from Nikitovka the Donets 
line branches off, and along that branch line I shall 
walk as far as Hatsepetovka, and there a railway 
guard, I know, will help me on my way.” 

I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between 
Nikitovka and Hatsepetovka, and pictured to myself 
Alexandr Ivanitch striding along it, with his doubts, 


Uprooted eS 


his homesickness, and his fear of solitude. . . . He 
read boredom in my face, and sighed. 

‘‘ And my sister must be married by now,” he said, 
thinking aloud, and at once, to shake off melan- 
choly thoughts, pointed to the top of the rock and 
said: 

‘“From that mountain one can see Izyum.”’ 

As we were walking up the mountain he had a lit- 
tle misfortune. I suppose he stumbled, for he slit 
his cotton trousers and tore the sole of his shoe. 

““Tss!” he said, frowning as he took off a shoe 


and exposed a bare foot without a stocking. ‘“‘ How 
unpleasant! . . . That’s a complication, you know, 
waniChs 242, Xesil 


Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as 
though unable to believe that the sole was ruined 
for ever, he spent a long time frowning, sighing, and 
clicking with his tongue. 

I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fash- 
ionable, with pointed toes and laces. I had brought 
them with me in case of need, and only wore them 
in wet weather. When we got back to our room I 
made up a phrase as diplomatic as I could and offered 
him these boots. He accepted them and said with 
dignity : 

‘I should thank you, but I know that you consider 
thanks a convention.” 

He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes 
and the laces, and even changed his plans. 

‘“ Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, 
and not in a fortnight,’”’ he said, thinking aloud. 
‘In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed to show 


156 The Tales of Chekhov 


myself to my godfather. I was not going away from 
here just because I hadn’t any decent clothes. . . .” 

When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a 
lay brother with a good ironical face came in to 
sweep out theroom. Alexandr Ivanitch seemed flus- 
tered and embarrassed and asked him timidly: 

‘Am I to stay here or go somewhere else? ”’ 

He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole 
room to himself, and evidently by now was feeling 
ashamed of living at the expense of the Monastery. 
He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off be- 
ing lonely as long as possible, he asked leave to see 
me on my way. 

The road from the Monastery, which had been 
excavated at the cost of no little labour in the chalk 
mountain, moved upwards, going almost like a spiral 
round the mountain, over roots and under sullen 
overhanging pines. . . 

The Donets was the first to vanish from our sight, 
after it the Monastery yard with its thousands of 
people, and then the green roofs. . . . Since I was 
mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing into 
a pit. The cross on the church, burnished by the 
rays of the setting sun, gleamed brightly in the abyss 
and vanished. Nothing was left but the oaks, the 
pines, and the white road. But then our carriage 
came out on a level country, and that was all left 
below and behind us. Alexandr Ivanitch jumped out 
and, smiling mournfully, glanced at me for the last 
time with his childish eyes, and vanished from me 
HOTEWMET:| 0) \t \e 

The impressions of the Holy Mountains had al- 


Uprooted 157 


ready become memories, and I saw something new: 
the level plain, the whitish-brown distance, the way- 
side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with- 
out moving, and seemed bored at not being allowed 
to wave its sails because it was a holiday. 


1%, 
aly 


‘" 
Uy, 





THE STEPPE 


By) 


fe 


fy 
Dy 
Nee 





DHE, SPERPE 


THE STORY OF A JOURNEY 
I 


EARLY one morning in July a shabby covered chaise, 
one of those antediluvian chaises without springs in 
which no one travels in Russia nowadays, except 
merchant’s clerks, dealers and the less well-to-do 
among priests, drove out of N., the principal town 
of the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the 
posting-track. It rattled and creaked at every move- 
ment; the pail, hanging on behind, chimed in gruffly, 
and from these sounds alone and from the wretched 
rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body 
one could judge of its decrepit age and readiness to 
drop to pieces. 

Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the 
chaise; they were a merchant of N. called Ivan Ivan- 
itch Kuzmitchov, a man with a shaven face wearing 
glasses and a straw hat, more like a government 
clerk than a merchant, and Father Christopher Sirey- 
sky, the priest of the Church of St. Nikolay at N., a 
little old man with long hair, in a grey canvas cas- 
sock, a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured em- 
broidered girdle. The former was absorbed in 
thought, and kept tossing his head to shake off drow- 
siness; in his countenance an habitual business-like 


reserve was struggling with the genial expression of 
161 


162 The Tales of Chekhov 


a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and 
has had a good drink at parting. The latter gazed 
with moist eyes wonderingly at God’s world, and his 
smile was so broad that it seemed to embrace even 
the brim of his hat; his face was red and looked‘ 
frozen. Both of them, Father Christopher as well 
as Kuzmitchov, were going to sell wool. At part- 
ing with their families they had just eaten heartily 
of pastry puffs and cream, and although it was so 
early in the morning had had a glass or two... . 
Both were in the best of humours. 

Apart from the two persons described above and 
the coachman Deniska, who lashed the pair of frisky 
bay horses, there was another figure in the chaise— 
a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears. 
This was Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov’s nephew. With 
the sanction of his uncle and the blessing of Father 
Christopher, he was now on his way to go to school. 
His mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of a collegi- 
ate secretary, and Kuzmitchov’s sister, who was fond 
of educated people and refined society, had entreated 
her brother to take Yegorushka with him when he 
went to sell wool and to put him to school; and now 
the boy was sitting on the box beside the coachman 
Deniska, holding on to his elbow to keep from fall- 
ing off, and dancing up and down like a kettle on the 
hob, with no notion where he was going or what he 
was going for. The rapid motion through the air 
blew out his red shirt like a balloon on his back and 
made his new hat with a peacock’s feather in it, like 
a coachman’s, keep slipping on to the back of his 
head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate per- 
son, and had an inclination to cry. 


The Steppe 163 


When the chaise drove past the prison, Yego- 
rushka glanced at the sentinels pacing slowly by the 
high white walls, at the little barred windows, at the 
cross shining on the roof, and remembered how the 
week before, on the day of the Holy Mother of 
Kazan, he had been with his mother to the prison 
church for the Dedication Feast, and how before 
that, at Easter, he had gone to the prison with De- 
niska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the pris- 
oners Easter bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. 
The prisoners had thanked them and made the sign 
of the cross, and one of them had given Yegorushka 
a pewter buckle of his own making. 

The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the 
hateful chaise flew by and left them all behind. 
After the prison he caught glimpses of black grimy 
foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery sur- 
rounded by a wall of cobblestones; white crosses and 
tombstones, nestling among green cherry-trees and 
looking in the distance like patches of white, peeped 
out gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka re- 
membered that when the cherries were in blossom 
those white patches melted with the flowers into a 
sea of white; and that when the cherries were ripe 
the white tombstones and crosses were dotted with 
splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the cherry- 
trees in the cemetery Yegorushka’s father and 
granny, Zinaida Danilovna, lay sleeping day and 
night. When Granny had died she had been put in 
a long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put 
upon her eyes, which would not keep shut. Up to 
the time of her death she had been brisk, and used 
to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from 


104 The Tales of Chekhov 


the market. Now she did nothing but sleep and 
Sleepale ye): 

Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brick- 
yards. From under the long roofs of reeds that 
looked as though pressed flat to the ground, a thick 
black smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily 
upwards. The sky was murky above the brickyards 
and the cemetery, and great shadows from the clouds 
of smoke crept over the fields and across the roads. 
Men and horses covered with red dust were moving 
about in the smoke near the roofs. . . . 

The town ended with the brickyards and the open 
country began. Yegorushka looked at the town for 
the last time, pressed his face against Deniska’s el- 
bow, and wept bitterly. .. . 

“Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!”’ cried 
Kuzmitchov. ‘You are blubbering again, little 
milksop! If you don’t want to go, stay behind; no 
one is taking you by force!” 

‘“Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never 
mind,’ Father Christopher muttered rapidly — 
“never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God... . 
You are not going for your harm, but for your good. 
Learning is light, as the saying is, and ignorance 1s 
darkness. . . . That is so, truly.” 

“ Do you want to go back?” asked Kuzmitchov. 

“Yes... yes, ... answered Yegorushka, 
sobbing. 

“Well, you’d better go back then. Anyway, you 
are going for nothing; it’s a day’s journey for a 
spoonful of porridge.” 

“Neyer mind, never mind, my boy,’ Father 
Christopher went on. ‘Call upon God... . 


7 


The Steppe 165 


Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same 
way, and he became a man famous all over Europe. 
Learning in conjunction with faith brings forth fruit 
pleasing to God. What are the words of the 
prayer? For the glory of our Maker, for the com- 
fort of our parents, for the benefit of our Church 
andour counthyis se Yes, indeed!)7’ 

“The benefit is not the same in all cases,’ said 
Kuzmitchov, lighting a cheap cigar; ‘‘some will 
study twenty years and get no sense from it.” 

“That does happen.” 

‘Learning is a benefit to some, but others only 
muddle their brains. My sister is a woman who 
does not understand; she is set upon refinement, and 
wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she 
does not understand that with my business I could 
settle Yegorka happily for the rest of his life. I 
tell you this, that if everyone were to go in for being 
learned and refined there would be no one to sow the 
corn and do the trading; they would all die of hun- 
ger. 

‘And if all go in for trading and sowing corn 
there will be no one to acquire learning.” 

And considering that each of them had said some- 
thing weighty and convincing, Kuzmitchov and 
Father Christopher both looked serious and cleared 
their throats simultaneously. 

Deniska, who had been listening to their conver- 
sation without understanding a word of it, shook his 
head and, rising in his seat, lashed at both the bays. 
A silence followed. 

Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by 
a chain of low hills lay stretched before the trav- 


106 The Tales of Chekhov 


ellers’ eyes. Huddling together and peeping out 
from behind one another, these hills melted together 
into rising ground, which stretched right to the very 
horizon and disappeared into the lilac distance; one 
drives on and on and cannot discern where it begins 
or where it ends. . . . The sun had already peeped 
out from beyond the town behind them, and quietly, 
without fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in 
the distance before them a broad, bright, yellow 
streak of light crept over the ground where the earth 
met the sky, near the little barrows and the wind- 
mills, which in the distance looked like tiny men 
waving their arms. A minute later a similar streak 
gleamed a little nearer, crept to the right and em- 
braced the hills. Something warm touched Yego- 
rushka’s spine; the streak of light, stealing up from 
behind, darted between the chaise and the horses, 
moved to meet the other streak, and soon the whole 
wide steppe flung off the twilight of early morning, 
and was smiling and sparkling with dew. 

The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milk- 
wort, the wild hemp, all withered from the sultry 
heat, turned brown and half dead, now washed by 
the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade 
again. Arctic petrels flew across the road with joy- 
ful cries; marmots called to one another in the grass. 
Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered 
their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared 
by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft 
“‘trrrr!”’ flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, 
locusts and grasshoppers kept up their churring, mo- 
notonous music. 

But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the 


The Steppe 107 


air grew stagnant, and the disillusioned steppe be- 
gan to wear its jaded July aspect. The grass 
drooped, everything living was hushed. The sun- 
baked hills, brownish-green and lilac in the distance, 
with their quiet shadowy tones, the plain with the 
misty distance and, arched above them, the sky, 
which seems terribly deep and transparent in the 
steppes, where there are no woods or high hills, 
seemed now endless, petrified with dreariness. . . . 

How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise 
raced along, while Yegorushka saw always the same 
— the sky, the plain, the low hills. . . . The music 
in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away, 
the partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly 
over the withered grass; they were all alike and 
made the steppe even more monotonous. 

A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even 
sweep of its wings, suddenly halted in the air as 
though pondering on the dreariness of life, then flut- 
tered its wings and flew like an arrow over the 
steppe, and there was no telling why it flew off and 
what it wanted. In the distance a windmill waved 
itssails.’\.))./\. 

Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or 
a heap of stones broke the monotony; a grey stone 
stood out for an instant or a parched willow with a 
blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run 
across the road and — again there flitted before the 
eyes only the high grass, the low hills, the rooks... . 

But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with 
sheaves came to meet them; a peasant wench was ly- 
ing on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat, 
she lifted her head and looked at the travellers. 


168 The Tales of Chekhov 


Deniska gaped, looking at her; the horses stretched 
out their noses towards the sheaves; the chaise, 
squeaking, kissed the waggon, and the pointed 
ears passed over Father Christopher’s hat like a 
brush. 

‘You are driving over folks, fatty!” cried De- 
niska. ‘‘ What a swollen lump of a face, as though 
a bumble-bee had stung it!” 

The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay 
down again; then a solitary poplar came into sight 
on the low hill. Someone had planted it, and God 
only knows why it was there. It was hard to tear 
the eyes away from its graceful figure and green 
drapery. Was that lovely creature happy? Sultry 
heat in summer, in winter frost and snowstorms, ter- 
rible nights in autumn when nothing is to be seen but 
darkness and nothing is to be heard but the senseless 
angry howling wind, and, worst of all, alone, alone 
forthe) whole jor Pife.\\..)' Beyond" the poplar 
stretches of wheat extended like a bright yellow car- 
pet from the road to the top of the hills. On the 
hills the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, 
while at the bottom they were still cutting. . . . Six 
mowers were standing in a row swinging their 
scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered 
in unison together ‘‘ Vzhee, vzhee!” Frem’ the 
movements of the peasant women binding the 
sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the glit- 
ter of the scythes, it could be seen that the sultry 
heat was baking and stifling. A black dog with its 
tongue hanging out ran from the mowers to meet 
the chaise, probably with the intention of barking, 
but stopped halfway and stared indifferently at De- 


The Steppe 169 


niska, who shook his whip at him; it was too hot to 
bark! One peasant woman got up and, putting 
both hands to her aching back, followed Yegorush- 
ka’s red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that 
the colour pleased her or that he reminded her of 
her children, she stood a long time motionless star- 
ing atter him: . |’. 

But now the Sea too, had flashed by; again the 
parched plain, the sunburnt hills, the sultry sky 
stretched before them; again a hawk hovered over 
the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill 
whirled its sails, and still it looked like a little man 
waving hisarms. It was wearisome to watch, and it 
seemed as though one would never reach it, as 
though it were running away from the chaise. 

Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. 
Deniska lashed the horses and kept shouting to 
them, while Yegorushka had left off crying, and 
gazed about him listlessly. The heat and the te- 
dium of the steppes overpowered him. He felt as 
though he had been travelling and jolting up and 
down for a very long time, that the sun had been 
baking his back a long time. Before they had gone 
eight miles he began to feel “It must be time to 
rest.’ The geniality gradually faded out of his un- 
cle’s face and nothing else was left but the air of 
business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, es- 
pecially when it is adorned with spectacles and the 
nose and temples are covered with dust, this reserve 
gives a relentless, inquisitorial appearance. Father 
Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at 
God’s world, and smiling. Without speaking, he 
brooded over something pleasant and nice, and a 


170 The Tales of Chekhov 


kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face. 
It seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought 
were imprinted on his brain by the heat. . . . 

“Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons 
to-day?” asked Kuzmitchov. 

Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed 
at his horses and then answered: 

‘By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake 
them.” 

There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a 
dozen steppe sheep-dogs, suddenly leaping out as 
though from ambush, with ferocious howling barks, 
flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordina- 
rily furious, surrounded the chaise, with their shaggy 
spider-like muzzles and their eyes red with anger, 
and jostling against one another in their anger, raised 
ahoarse howl. ‘They were filled with passionate ha- 
tred of the horses, of the chaise, and of the human 
beings, and seemed ready to tear them into pieces. 
Deniska, who was fond of teasing and beating, was 
delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant 
expression bent over and lashed at the sheep-dogs 
with his whip. The brutes growled more than ever, 
the horses flew on; and Yegorushka, who had diff- 
culty in keeping his seat on the box, realized, look- 
ing at the dogs’ eyes and teeth, that if he fell down 
they would instantly tear him to bits; but he felt no 
fear and looked at them as malignantly as Deniska, 
and regretted that he had no whip in his hand. 

The chaise came upon a flock of sheep. 

“ Stop!” cried Kuzmitchov. ‘ Pull up! Woa!” 

Deniska threw his whole body backwards and 
pulled up the horses. 


The Steppe 173 


“Come here!’ Kuzmitchov shouted to the shep- 
herd. ‘‘ Call off the dogs, curse them! ”’ 

The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing 
a fur cap, with a dirty sack round his loins and a 
long crook in his hand —a regular figure from the 
Old Testament — called off the dogs, and taking off 
his cap, went up to the chaise. Another similar Old 
Testament figure was standing motionless at the 
other end of the flock, staring without interest at the 
travellers. 

‘* Whose sheep are these? ’’ asked Kuzmitchov. 

‘“ Varlamov’s,” the old man answered in a loud 
voice. 

‘““Varlamov’s,”’ repeated the shepherd standing 
act the other end of the flock. 

“Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or 
not?” 

*“ He did not: his clerk came. . .).” 

‘* Drive on!” 

The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their 
angry dogs, were left behind. Yegorushka gazed 
listlessly at the lilac distance in front, and it began 
to seem as though the windmill, waving its sails, were 
getting nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew 
quite large, and now he could distinguish clearly its 
two sails. One sail was old and patched, the other 
had only lately been made of new wood and glistened 
in the sun. The chaise drove straight on, while the 
windmill, for some reason, began retreating to the 
left. They drove on and on, and the windmill kept 
moving away to the left, and still did not disappear. 

‘“ A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son,” 
observed Deniska. 


172 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘© And how is it we don’t see his farm? ” 

“Tt is that way, beyond the creek.” 

Boltva’s farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet 
the windmill did not retreat, did not drop behind; 
it still watched Yegorushka with its shining sail and 
waved. What a sorcerer! 


II 


Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to 
the right; it went on a little way at walking pace 
and then stopped. Yegorushka heard a soft, very 
caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on 
his face with a cool velvety touch. Through a lit- 
tle pipe of hemlock stuck there by some unknown 
benefactor, water was running in a thin trickle from 
a low hill, put together by nature of huge mon- 
strous stones. It fell to the ground, and limpid, 
sparkling gaily in the sun, and softly murmuring as 
though fancying itself a great tempestuous torrent, 
flowed swiftly away tothe left. Not far from its 
source the little stream spread itself out into a pool; 
the burning sunbeams and the parched soil greedily 
drank it up and sucked away its strength; but a little 
further on it must have mingled with another rivu- 
let, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed 
green and luxuriant along its course, and three snipe 
flew up from them with a loud cry as the chaise drove 
by. 
The travellers got out‘to rest by the stream and 
feed the horses. Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher 
and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in the nar- 


The Steppe pte) 


row strip of shade cast by the chaise and the un- 
harnessed horses. The nice pleasant thought that 
the heat had imprinted in Father Christopher’s 
brain craved expression after he had had a drink 
of water and eaten a hard-boiled egg. He bent 
a friendly look upon Yegorushka, munched, and 
began: : 
“T studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God 
instilled into me good sense and understanding, so 
that while I was just such a lad as you I was beyond 
others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors by 
my good sense. Before I was fifteen I could speak 
and make verses in Latin, just as in Russian. I was 
the crosier-bearer to his Holiness Bishop Christo- 
pher. After mass one day, as I remember tt was 
the patron saint’s day of His Majesty Tsar Alex- 
andr Pavlovitch of blessed memory, he unrobed at 
the altar, looked kindly at me and asked, * Puer bone, 
quam appelaris?’ And I answered, ‘ Christopherus 
sum;’ and he said, ‘Ergo connominati sumus ’>— 
that is, that we were namesakes. . . . Then he 
asked in Latin, ‘ Whose son are you?’ ‘To which I 
answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon 
Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my 
readiness and the clearness of my. answers, his Holi- 
ness blessed me and said, ‘ Write to your father that 
I will not forget him, and that I will keep you in 
view. The holy priests and fathers who were 
standing round the altar, hearing our discussion in 
Latin, were not a little surprised, and everyone ex- 
pressed his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had 
moustaches, my boy, I could read Latin, Greek, and 
French; I knew philosophy, mathematics, secular 


174 The Tales of Chekhov 


history, and all the sciences. The Lord gave me a 
marvellous memory. Sometimes, if I read a thing 
once or twice, I knew it by heart. My preceptors 
and patrons were amazed, and so they expected I 
should make a learned man, a luminary of the 
Church. I did think of going to Kiev to continue 
my studies, but my parents did not approve. 
‘You'll be studying all your life,’ said my father; 
‘when shall we see you finished?’ Hearing such 
words, I gave up study and took a post... . Of 
course, I did not become a learned man, but then 
I did not disobey my parents; I was a comfort to 
them in their old age and gave them a creditable 
funeral. Obedience is more than fasting and 
prayer.” 

‘I suppose you have forgotten all your learn- 
ing?’ observed Kuzmitchov. 

‘T should think so! ‘Thank God, I have reached 
my eightieth year! Something of philosophy and 
rhetoric I do remember, but languages and mathe- 
matics I have quite forgotten.” 

Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought 
a minute and said in an undertone: 

“What is a substance? A creature is a self-ex- 
isting object, not requiring anything else for its com- 
pletion.” 

He shook his head and laughed with feeling. 

‘‘ Spiritual nourishment!” he said. ‘‘ Of a truth 
matter nourishes the flesh and spiritual nourishment 
the soul!” 

‘Learning is all very well,” sighed Kuzmitchov, 
‘but if we don’t overtake Varlamov, learning won’t 
do much for us.” 


The Steppe iri 


‘* A man isn’t a needle — we shall find him. He 
must be going his rounds in these parts.” 

Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they 
had seen before, and in their plaintive cries there 
was a note of alarm and vexation at having been 
driven away from the stream. The horses were 
steadily munching and snorting. Deniska walked 
about by them and, trying to appear indifferent to 
the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry were 
eating, he concentrated himself on the gadflies and 
horseflies that were fastening upon the horses’ backs 
and bellies; he squashed his victims apathetically, 
emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant, guttural 
sound, and when he missed them cleared his throat 
with an air of vexation and looked after every lucky 
one that escaped death. 

‘“ Deniska, where are you? Come and eat,” said 
Kuzmitchov, heaving a deep sigh, a sign that he 
had had enough. 

Deniska difidently approached the mat and picked 
out five thick and yellow cucumbers (he did not ven- 
ture to take the smaller and fresher ones), took two 
hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were 
cracked, then irresolutely, as though afraid he might 
get a blow on his outstretched hand, touched a pie 
with his finger. 

“Take them, take them,” Kuzmitchov urged him 
on. 
Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving 
some distance away, sat down on the grass with his 
back to the chaise. At once there was such a sound 
of loud munching that even the horses turned round 
to look suspiciously at Deniska. 


176 The Tales of Chekhov 


After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack contain- 
ing something out of the chaise and said to Yego- 
rushka: 

‘“T am going to sleep, and you mind that no one 
takes the sack from under my head.” 

Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, 
and his full coat, and Yegorushka, looking at him, 
was dumb with astonishment. He had never imag- 
ined that priests wore trousers, and Father Chris- 
topher had on real canvas trousers thrust into high 
boots, and a short striped jacket. Looking at him, 
Yegorushka thought that in this costume, so unsuit- 
able to his dignified position, he looked with his long 
hair and beard very much like Robinson Crusoe. 
After taking off their outer garments Kuzmitchov 
and Father Christopher lay down in the shade under 
the chaise, facing one another, and closed their eyes. 
Deniska, who had finished munching, stretched him- 
self out on his back and also closed his eyes. 

“You look out that no one takes away the 
horses!’ he said to Yegorushka, and at once fell 
asleep. 

Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the 
munching and snorting of the horses and the snoring 
of the sleepers; somewhere far away a lapwing 
wailed, and from time to time there sounded the 
shrill cries of the three snipe who had flown up to see 
whether their uninvited visitors had gone away; the 
rivulet babbled, lisping softly, but all these sounds 
did not break the stillness, did not stir the stagna- 
tion, but, on the contrary, lulled all nature to slum- 
ber. 

Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was 


The Steppe u77 


particularly oppressive after a meal, ran to the sedge 
and from there surveyed the country. He saw ex- 
actly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, 
the low hills, the sky, the lilac distance; only the 
hills stood nearer; and he could not see the wind- 
mill, which had been left far behind. From behind 
the rocky hill from which the stream flowed rose an- 
other, smoother and broader; a little hamlet of five 
or six homesteads clung to it. No people, no trees, 
no shade were to be seen about the huts; it looked 
as though the hamlet had expired in the burning air 
and was dried up. To while away the time Yego- 
rushka caught a grasshopper in the grass, held it in 
his closed hand to his ear, and spent a long time 
listening to the creature playing on its instrument. 
When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock 
of yellow butterflies who were flying towards the 
sedge on the watercourse, and found himself again 
beside the chaise, without noticing how he came 
there. His uncle and Father Christopher were 
sound asleep; their sleep would be sure to last two or 
three hours till the horses had rested. . . . How 
was he to get through that long time, and where was 
he to get away from the heat? A hard problem. 
. . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the 
trickle that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chill- 
iness in his mouth and there was the smell of hem- 
lock. He drank at first eagerly, then went on with 
effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all 
over his body and the water was spilt on his shirt. 
Then he went up to the chaise and began looking at 
the sleeping figures. His uncle’s face wore, as be- 
fore, an expression of business-like reserve. Fanat- 


178 The Tales of Chekhov 


ically devoted to his work, Kuzmitchov always, even 
in his sleep and at church when they were singing, 
‘* Like the cherubim,” thought about his business and 
could never forget it for a moment; and now he 
was probably dreaming about bales of wool, wag- 
gons, prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, 
now, a soft, frivolous and absurd person, had never 
all his life been conscious of anything which could, 
like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold it 
tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had un- 
dertaken in his day what attracted him was not so 
much the business itself, but the bustle and the con- 
tact with other people involved in every undertaking. 
Thus, in the present expedition, he was not so much 
interested in wool, in Varlamoy, and in prices, as in 
the long journey, the conversations on the way, the 
sleeping under a chaise, and the meals at odd times. 
. . . And now, judging from his face, he must have 
been dreaming of Bishop Christopher, of the Latin 
discussion, of his wife, of puffs and cream and all 
sorts of things that Kuzmitchov could not possibly 
dream of. 

While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping 
faces he suddenly heard a soft singing; somewhere 
at a distance a woman was singing, and it was difh- 
cult to tell where and in what direction. The song 
was subdued, dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, 
and hardly audible, and seemed to come first from 
the right, then from the left, then from above, and 
then from underground, as though an unseen spirit 
were hovering over the steppe and singing. Yego- 
rushka looked about him, and could not make out 
where the strange song came from. ‘Then as he 


The Steppe 179 


listened he began to fancy that the grass was singing; 
in its song, withered and half-dead, it was without 
words, but plaintively and passionately, urging that 
it was not to blame, that the sun was burning it for 
no fault of its own; it urged that it ardently longed 
to live, that it was young and might have been beau- 
tiful but for the heat and the drought; it was guilt- 
less, but yet it prayed forgiveness and protested that 
it was in anguish, sad and sorry for itself. . . . 

Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to 

seem as though this dreary, mournful song made the 
air hotter, more suffocating and more stagnant. . 
To drown the singing he ran to the sedge, humming 
to himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. 
From there he looked about in all directions and 
found out who was singing. Near the furthest hut 
in the hamlet stood a peasant woman in a short petti- 
coat, with long thin legs like a heron. She was sow- 
ing something. A white dust floated languidly from 
her sieve down the hillock. Now it was evident that 
she was singing. A couple of yards from her a little 
bare-headed boy in nothing but a smock was stand- 
ing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, 
he stood stock-still, staring away into the distance, 
‘ probably at Yegorushka’s crimson shirt. 

The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to 
the chaise, and to while away the time went again to 
the trickle of water. 

And again there was the sound of the dreary song. 
It was the same long-legged peasant woman in the 
hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka’s boredom came 
back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. 
What he saw was so unexpected that he was a little 


180 The Tales of Chekhov 


frightened. Just above his head on one of the big 
clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy, wearing noth- 
ing but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin 
legs, the same boy who had been standing before by 
the peasant woman. He was gazing with open 
mouth and unblinking eyes at Yegorushka’s crimson 
shirt and at the chaise, with a look of blank aston- 
ishment and even fear, as though he saw before him 
creatures of another world. ‘The red colour of the 
shirt charmed and allured him. But the chaise and 
the men sleeping under it excited his curiosity; per- 
haps he had not noticed how the agreeable red col- 
our and curiosity had attracted him down from the 
hamlet, and now probably he was surprised at his 
own boldness. For a long while Yegorushka stared 
at him, and he at Yegorushka. Both were silent 
and conscious of some awkwardness. After a long 
silence Yegorushka asked: 

‘“‘ What’s your name? ”’ 

The stranger’s cheeks puffed out more than ever; 
he pressed his back against the rock, opened his eyes 
wide, moved his lips, and answered in a husky bass: 
66 Tit! ” 

The boys said not another word to each other; 
after a brief silence, still keeping his eyes fixed on 
Yegorushka, the mysterious Tit kicked up one leg, 
felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up the 
rock; from that point he ascended to the next rock, 
staggering backwards and looking intently at Yego- 
rushka, as though afraid he might hit him from be- 
hind, and so made his way upwards till he disap- 
peared altogether behind the crest of the hill. 


The Steppe 181 


After watching him out of sight, Yegorushka put 
his arms round his knees and leaned his head on 
them. . . . The burning sun scorched the back of 
his head, his neck, and his spine. The melancholy 
song died away, then floated again on the stagnant 
stifling air. The rivulet gurgled monotonously, the 
horses munched, and time dragged on endlessly, as 
though it, too, were stagnant and had come to a 
standstill. It seemed as though a hundred years 
had passed since the morning. Could it be that 
God’s world, the chaise and the horses would come 
to a standstill in that air, and, like the hills, turn 
to stone and remain for ever in one spot? Yego- 
rushka raised his head, and with smarting eyes 
looked before him; the lilac distance, which till then 
had been motionless, began heaving, and with the sky 
floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it 
the brown grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary 
swiftness Yegorushka floated after the flying dis- 
tance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards, 
‘and the heat and the wearisome song flew after in 
pursuit. Yegorushka bent his head and shut his 
eyes ned): 

Deniska was the first to wake up. Something 
must have bitten him, for he jumped up, quickly 
scratched his shoulder and said: 

‘““ Plague take you, cursed idolater! ”’ 

Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly 
washed. His splashing and puffing roused Yego- 
rushka from his lethargy. The boy looked at his 
wet face with drops of water and big freckles which 
made it look like marble, and asked: 


182 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘* Shall we soon be going?” 

Deniska looked at the height of the sun and an- 
swered: 

i wiexpect so: | 

He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, 
making a very serious face, hopped on one leg. 

‘““T say, which of us will get to the sedge first? ”’ 
he said. 

Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drow- 
siness, but he raced off after him all the same. De- 
niska was in his twentieth year, was a coachman and 
going to be married, but he had not left off being a 
boy. He was very fond of flying kites, chasing pig- . 
eons, playing knuckle-bones, running races, and al- 
ways took part in children’s games and disputes. 
No sooner had his master turned his back or gone 
to sleep than Deniska would begin doing something 
such as hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It 
was hard for any grown-up person, seeing the genu- 
ine enthusiasm with which he frolicked about in the 
society of children, to resist saying, ‘‘ What a baby!” 
Children, on the other hand, saw nothing strange in 
the invasion of their domain by the big coachman. 
‘“ Let him play,” they thought, “ as long as he doesn’t 
fight!’ In the same way little dogs see nothing 
strange in it when a simple-hearted big dog joins 
their company uninvited and begins playing with 
them. 

Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evi- 
dently very much pleased at having done so. He 
winked at him, and to show that he could hop on 
one leg any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that 
he should hop with him along the road and from 


The Steppe 183 


there, without resting, back to the chaise. Yego- 
rushka declined this suggestion, for he was very 
much out of breath and exhausted. 

All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did 
not look even when Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding 
or threatened him with a stick; listening intently, he 
dropped quietly on one knee and an expression of 
sternness and alarm came into his face, such as one 
sees in people who hear heretical talk. He fixed his 
eyes on one spot, raised his hand curved into a hol- 
low, and suddenly fell on his stomach on the ground 
and slapped the hollow of his hand down upon the 
grass. 

“ Caught!” he wheezed triumphantly, and, get- 
ting up, lifted a big grasshopper to Yegorushka’s 
eyes. 

The two boys stroked the grasshopper’s broad 
green back with their fingers and touched his an- 
tennz, supposing that this would please the creature. 
Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been suck- 
ing blood and offered it to the grasshopper. The 
latter moved his huge jaws, that were like the visor 
of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern, as though 
he had been long acquainted with Deniska, and bit 
off the fly’s stomach. They let him go. With a 
flash of the pink lining of his wings, he flew down 
into the grass and at once began his churring notes 
again. They let the fly go, too. It preened its 
wings, and without its stomach flew off to the horses. 

A loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. 
It was Kuzmitchov waking up. He quickly raised 
his head, looked uneasily into the distance, and from 
that look, which passed by Yegorushka and Deniska 


184 The Tales of Chekhov 


without sympathy or interest, it could be seen that his 
thought on awaking was of the wool and of Varla- 
mov. 

‘Father Christopher, get up; it is time to start,” 
he said anxiously. ‘*‘ Wake up; we've slept too long 
as it is! Deniska, put the horses in.”’ 

Father Christopher woke up with the same smile 
with which he had fallen asleep; his face looked 
creased and wrinkled from sleep, and seemed only 
half the size. After washing and dressing, he pro- 
ceeded without haste to take out of his pocket a little 
greasy psalter; and standing with his face towards 
the east, began in a whisper repeating the psalms of 
the day and crossing himself. 

“Father Christopher,” said Kuzmitchov re- 
proachfully, ‘‘ it’s time to start; the horses are ready, 
and here are you, . . . upon my word.” 

‘‘In a minute, in a minute,” muttered Father 
Ghristopher: sl imust,read\ the) psalms!) 02) 298 
haven’t read them to-day.” 

‘The psalms can wait.” 

“Tyan Ivanitch, that is my rule every day... . 
Dreanien nce 

“God will overlook it.” 

For a full quarter of an hour Father Christopher 
stood facing the east and moving his lips, while Kuz- 
mitchov looked at him almost with hatred and im- 
patiently shrugged his shoulders. He was particu- 
larly irritated when, after every “ Hallelujah,” 
Father Christopher drew a long breath, rapidly 
crossed himself and repeated three times, intention- 
ally raising his voice so that the others might cross 
themselves, ‘‘ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! 


The Steppe 185 


Glory be to Thee, O Lord!” At last he smiled, 
looked upwards at the sky, and, putting the psalter 
in his pocket, said: 

“ Finis!” 

A minute later the chaise had started on the road. 
As though it were going backwards and not for- ° 
wards, the travellers saw the same scene as they had 
before midday. 

The low hills were still plunged in the lilac dis- 
tance, and no end could be seen to them. There 
were glimpses of high grass and heaps of stones; 
strips of stubble land passed by them and still the 
same rooks, the same hawk, moving its wings with 
slow dignity, moved over the steppe. The air was 
more sultry than ever; from the sultry heat and the 
stillness submissive nature was spellbound into 
silence. . . . No wind, no fresh cheering sound, no 
cloud. 

But at last, when the sun was beginning to sink 
into the west, the steppe, the hills and the air could 
bear the oppression no longer, and, driven out of all 
patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the yoke. A 
fleecy ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared be- 
hind the hills. It exchanged glances with the steppe, 
as though to say, ‘‘ Here I am,” and frowned. Sud- 
denly something burst in the stagnant air; there was 
a violent squall of wind which whirled round and 
round, roaring and whistling over the steppe. At 
once a murmur rose from the grass and last year’s 
dry herbage, the dust curled in spiral eddies over 
the road, raced over the steppe, and carrying with it 
straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirl- 
ing black column towards the sky and darkened the 


186 The Tales of Chekhov 


sun. Prickly uprooted plants ran stumbling and 
leaping in all directions over the steppe, and one of 
them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and 
round like a bird, flew towards the sky, and turning 
into a little black speck, vanished from sight. After 
it flew another, and then a third, and Yegorushka 
saw two of them meet in the blue height and clutch 
at one another as though they were wrestling. 

A bustard flew up by the very road. Fluttering 
his wings and his tail, he looked, bathed in the sun- 
shine, like an angler’s glittering tin fish or a waterfly 
flashing so swiftly over the water that its wings 
cannot be told from its antenne, which seem to be 
growing before, behind and on all sides. . 
Quivering in the air like an insect with a shimmer 
of bright colours, the bustard flew high up in a 
straight line, then, probably frightened by a cloud of 
dust, swerved to one side, and for a long time the 
gleam of his wings could be seen. . . . 

Then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed 
by the hurricane and not knowing what was the 
matter. It flew with the wind and not against it, 
like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were 
ruffed up and it was puffed out to the size of a hen 
and looked very angry and impressive. Only the 
rooks who had grown old on the steppe and were 
accustomed to its vagaries hovered calmly over the 
grass, or taking no notice of anything, went on un- 
concernedly pecking with their stout beaks at the 
hard earth. 

There was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; 
there came a whiff of fresh air. Deniska gave a 
cheerful whistle and lashed his horses. Father 


The Steppe 187 


Christopher and Kuzmitchov held their hats and 
looked intently towards the hills... . How 
pleasant a shower of rain would have been! 

One effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the 
steppe would have got the upper hand. But the 
unseen oppressive force gradually riveted its fetters ° 
on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the still- 
ness came back again as though nothing had hap- 
pened, the cloud hid, the sun-baked hills frowned 
submissively, the air grew calm, and only somewhere 
the troubled lapwings wailed and lamented their 
destiny.) 2) 

Soon after that the evening came on. 


III 


In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, 
with a rusty iron roof and with dark windows, came 
into sight. This house was called a posting-inn, 
though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood 
in the middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure 
round it. A little to one side of it a wretched little 
cherry orchard shut in by a hurdle fence made a 
dark patch, and under the windows stood sleepy 
sunflowers drooping their heavy heads. From the 
orchard came the clatter of a little toy windmill, set 
there to frighten away hares by the rattle. Nothing 
more could be seen near the house, and nothing could 
be heard but the steppe. ‘The chaise had scarcely 
stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when 
from the house there came the sound of cheerful 
voices, one a man’s, another a woman’s; there was 


188 The Tales of Chekhov 


the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall gaunt 
figure, swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was 
standing by the chaise. This was the innkeeper, 
Moisey Moisevitch, a man no longer young, with a 
very pale face and a handsome beard as black as 
charcoal. He was wearing a threadbare black coat, 
which hung flapping on his narrow shoulders as 
though on a hatstand, and fluttered its skirts like 
wings every time Moisey Moisevitch flung up his 
hands in delight or horror. Besides his coat the 
innkeeper was wearing full white trousers, not stuck 
into his boots, and a velvet waistcoat with brown 
flowers on it that looked like gigantic bugs. 

Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess 
of feeling on recognizing the travellers, then he 
clasped his hands and uttered a moan. His coat 
swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and his 
pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that 
to see the chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, 
but actually a joy so sweet as to be painful. 

‘Oh dear! oh dear!” he began in a thin sing- 
song voice, breathless, fussing about and preventing 
the travellers from getting out of the chaise by his 
antics. ‘‘ What a happy day for me! Oh, what 
am I to do now? Ivan Ivanitch! Father Chris- 
topher! What a pretty little gentleman sitting on 
the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness! 
why am I standing here instead of asking the visitors 
indoors? Please walk in, I humbly beg you... . 
You are kindly welcome! Give me all your things. 
. . . Oh, my goodness me! ”’ 

Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the 
chaise and assisting the travellers to alight, suddenly 


The Steppe 189 


turned back and shouted in a voice as frantic and 
choking as though he were drowning and calling for 
help: 

“Solomon! Solomon!” 

‘Solomon! Solomon! ”’ a woman’s voice repeated 
indoors. 

The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway ap- 
peared a rather short young Jew with a big beak- 
like nose, with a bald patch surrounded by rough 
red curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very 
shabby reefer jacket, with rounded lappets and short 
sleeves, and in short serge trousers, so that he looked 
skimpy and short-tailed like an unfledged bird. 
This was Solomon, the brother of Moisey Moise- 
vitch. He went up to the chaise, smiling rather 
queerly, and did not speak or greet the travellers. 

‘“Tvan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have 
come,” said Moisey Moisevitch in a tone as though 
he were afraid his brother would not believe him. 
“Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured 
guests to have come us so suddenly! Come, take 
their things, Solomon. Walk in, honoured guests.” 

A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, 
and Yegorushka were sitting in a big gloomy empty 
room at an old oak table. The table was almost 
in solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn 
American leather and three chairs, there was no 
other furniture in the room. And, indeed, not 
everybody would have given the chairs that name. 
They were a pitiful semblance of furniture, covered 
with American leather that had seen its best days, 
and with backs bent backwards at an unnaturally 
acute angle, so that they looked like children’s 


190 The Tales of Chekhov 


sledges. It was hard to imagine what had been the 
unknown carpenter’s object in bending the chair- 
backs so mercilessly, and one was tempted to imagine 
that it was not the carpenter’s fault, but that some 
athletic visitor had bent the chairs like this as a feat, 
then had tried to bend them back again and had 
made them worse. The room looked gloomy, the 
walls were grey, the ceilings and the cornices were 
grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning holes 
that were hard to account for (one might have 
fancied they were made by the heel of the same 
athlete), and it seemed as though the room would 
still have been dark if a dozen lamps had hung in 
it. [here was nothing approaching an ornament 
on the walls: or the windows. On one wall, how- 
ever, there hung a list of regulations of some sort 
under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden frame, 
and on another wall in the same sort of frame an 
engraving with the inscription, ‘‘ The Indifference 
of Man.” What it was to which men were in- 
different it was impossible to make out, as the en- 
graving was very dingy with age and was extensively 
flyblown. There was a smell of something decayed 
and sour in the room. 

As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey 
Moisevitch went on wriggling, gesticulating, shrug- 
ging and uttering joyful exclamations; he considered 
these antics necessary in order to seem polite and 
agreeable. 

‘“When did our waggons go by?” Kuzmitchov 
asked. 

‘One party went by early this morning, and the 


The Steppe 191 


other, Ivan Ivanitch, put up here for dinner and 
went on towards evening.” 

“ Ah! . .. Has Varlamov been by or not? ” 

“No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegor- 
itch, went by yesterday morning and said that he 
had to be to-day at the Molokans’ farm.” 

‘Good! so we will go after the waggons directly 
and then on to the Molokans’.” 

““ Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!”’ Moisey Moise- 
vitch cried in horror, flinging up his hands. 
‘““Where are you going for the night? You will 
have a nice little supper and stay the night, and 
to-morrow morning, please God, you can go on and 
overtake anyone you like.” 

‘There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, 
Moisey Moisevitch, another time; but now I must 
make haste. We'll stay a quarter of an hour and 
then go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans’.”’ 

‘“‘ A quarter of an hour!” squealed Moisey Moise- 
vitch. ‘‘ Have you no fear of God, Ivan Ivanitch? 
You will compel me to hide your caps and lock the 
door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of 
something, anyway.” 

‘“ We have no time for tea,”’ said Kuzmitchov. 

Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, 
crooked his knees, and put his open hands before 
him as though warding off a blow, while with a smile 
of agonized sweetness he began imploring: 

‘“Tvan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be 
so good as to take a cup of tea with me. Surely 
I am not such a bad man that you can’t even drink 
tea in my house? Ivan Ivanitch! ”’ 


!» 


’ 


oz The Tales of Chekhov 


‘Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea,” 
said Father Christopher, with a sympathetic smile; 
‘that won’t keep us long.” 

‘’ Very well,” Kuzmitchov assented. 

Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an 
exclamation of joy, and shrugging as though he 
had just stepped out of cold weather into warm, ran 
to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in 
which he had called Solomon: 

‘“ Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!”’ 

A minute later the door opened, and Solomon 
came into the room carrying a large tray in his 
hands. Setting the tray on the table, he looked 
away sarcastically with the same queer smile as 
before. Now, by the light of the lamp, it was pos- 
sible to see his smile distinctly; it was very complex, 
and expressed a variety of emotions, but the pre- 
dominant element in it was undisguised contempt. 
He seemed to be thinking of something ludicrous 
and silly, to be feeling contempt and dislike, to be 
pleased at something and waiting for the favourable 
moment to turn something into ridicule and to burst 
into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and his 
sly prominent eyes seemed tense with the desire to 
laugh. Looking at his face, Kuzmitchov smiled 
ironically and asked: 

‘“ Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at 
N. this summer, and act some Jewish scenes?” 

Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered 
very well, at one of the booths at the fair at N., 
Solomon had performed some scenes of Jewish life, 
and his acting had been a great success. ‘The allu- 
sion to this made no impression whatever upon Solo- 


The Steppe 193 


mon. Making no answer, he went out and returned 
a little later with the samovar. 

When he had done what he had to do at the 
table he moved a little aside, and, folding his arms 
over his chest and thrusting out one leg, fixed his 
sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was 
something defiant, haughty, and contemptuous in 
his attitude, and at the same time it was comic and 
pitiful in the extreme, because the more impressive 
his attitude the more vividly it showed up his short 
trousers, his bobtail coat, his caricature of a nose, 
and his bird-like plucked-looking little figure. 

Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the 
other room and sat down a little way from the table. 

“I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!” 
he began, trying to entertain his visitors. ‘I hope 
you will enjoy it. Such rare guests, such rare ones; 
it is years since I last saw Father Christopher. And 
will no one tell me who is this nice little gentle- 
man?” he asked, looking tenderly at Yegorushka. 

“He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna,”’ 
answered Kuzmitchoy. 

‘“ And where is he going? ” 

“To school. We are taking him to a high 
school.”’ 

In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a 
look of wonder and wagged his head expressively. 

“Ah, that is a fine thing,” he said, shaking his 
finger at the samovar. ‘‘ That’s a fine thing. You 
will come back from the high school such a gentle- 
man that we shall all take off our hats to you. You 
will be wealthy and wise and so grand that your 
mamma will be delighted. Oh, that’s a fine thing! ”’ 


194 The Tales of Chekhov 


He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began 
again in a jocose and deferential tone. 

‘You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but 
I am thinking of writing to the bishop to tell him 
you are robbing the merchants of their living. I 
shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that 
I suppose Father Christopher is short of pence, as 
he has taken up with trade and begun selling wool.” 

Ea mae yes)! itis/-a queer notion in) my jold 
age,’ said Father Christopher, and he laughed. “I 
have turned from priest to merchant, brother. I 
ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead 
of galloping about the country like a Pharaoh in his 
chaimiots ie iu.) Wamttyal, 

‘ But it will mean a lot of pence! ”’ 

‘“Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, 
and serve me right. [he wool’s not mine, but my 
son-in-law Mihail’s! ” 

‘“ Why doesn’t he go himself? ” 

 Wihty,) \ibecause)4)\ i Edis\\ mother’s) mailkiias 
scarcely dry upon his lips. He can buy wool all 
right, but when it comes to selling, he has no sense; 
he is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he 
wanted to grow rich and cut a dash, but he tried 
here and there, and no one would give him his price. 
And so the lad went on like that for a year, and 
then he came to me and said, ° Daddy, you sell the 
wool for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at 
the business!’ And that is true enough. As soon 
as there is anything wrong then it’s ‘ Daddy,’ but till 
then they could get on without their dad. When 
he was buying he did not consult me, but now when 
he is in difficulties it’s Daddy’s turn. And what 


The Steppe 195 


does his dad know about it? If it were not for 
Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a 
lot of worry with them.” 

“Yes; one has a lot of worry with one’s children, 
I can tell you that,” sighed Moisey Moisevitch. “I 
have six of my own. One needs schooling, another 
needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and when 
they grow up they are more trouble still. It is not 
only nowadays, it was the same in Holy Scripture. 
When Jacob had little children he wept, and when 
they grew up he wept still more bitterly.” 

‘““H’m, yes...’ Father Christopher assented 
pensively, looking at his glass. ‘‘I have no cause 
myself to rail against the Lord. I have lived to 
the end of my days as any man might be thankful 
to live. . . . I have married my daughters to good 
men, my sons I have set up in life, and now I am 
free; I have done my work and can go where [I like. 
I live in peace with my wife. I eat and drink and 
sleep and rejoice in my grandchildren, and say my 
prayers and want nothing more. I live on the fat 
of the land, and don’t need to curry favour with 
anyone. I have never had any trouble from child- 
hood, and now suppose the Tsar were to ask me, 
‘What do you need? What would you like?’ why, 
I don’t need anything. I have everything I want 
and everything to be thankful for. In the whole 
town there is no happier man than Iam. My only 
trouble is I have so many sins, but there — only God 
is without sin. That’s right, isn’t it?” 

‘“ No doubt it is.” 

‘“‘T have no teeth, of course; my poor old back 
aches; there is one thing and another, . . . asthma 


196 The Tales of Chekhov 


and that sort\of thing, ache). ihe tesh 
is weak, but then think of my age! I am in the 
eighties! One can’t go on for ever; one mustn't 
outstay one’s welcome.” 

Father Christopher suddenly thought of some- 
thing, spluttered into his glass and choked with 
laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too, from 
politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat. 

‘*So funny!” said Father Christopher, and he 
waved his hand. ‘‘ My eldest son Gavrila came to 
pay me a visit. He is in the medical line, and is a 
district doctor in the province of Tchernigov, .. . 
‘Very well . . .’ I said to him, “here I have asthma 
and one thing and another. . . . You are a doctor; 
cure your father!’ He undressed me on the spot, 
tapped me, listened, and all sorts of tricks, .. . 
kneaded my stomach, and then he said, ‘ Dad, you 
ought to be treated with compressed air.’”” Father 
Christopher laughed convulsively, till the tears came 
into his eyes, and got up. 

‘And I said to him, ‘ God bless your compressed 
air!’ ’’ he brought out through his laughter, waving 
both hands. ‘‘ God bless your compressed air!” 

Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his 
hands on his stomach, went off into shrill laughter 
like the yap of a lap-dog. 

‘“ God bless the compressed air!” repeated Father 
Christopher, Jaughing. 

Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and 
so violently that he could hardly stand on his feet. 

“Oh dear!” he moaned through his laughter. 
‘Let me get my breath. ... . You'll be the: death 
of me.” 


The Steppe 197 


He laughed and talked, though at the same time 
he was casting timorous and suspicious looks at 
Solomon. The latter was standing in the same 
attitude and still smiling. To judge from his eyes 
and his smile, his contempt and hatred were genuine, 
but that was so out of keeping with his plucked- 
looking figure that it seemed to Yegorushka as 
though he were putting on his defiant attitude and 
biting sarcastic smile to play the fool for the enter- 
tainment of their honoured guests. 

After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuz- 
mitchov cleared a space before him on the table, 
took his bag, the one which he kept under his head 
when he slept under the chaise, untied the string and 
shook it. Rolls of paper notes were scattered out 
of the bag on the table. 

“While we have the time, Father Christopher, 
let us reckon up,”’ said Kuzmitchov. 

Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight 
of the money. He got up, and, as a man of delicate 
feeling unwilling to pry into other people’s secrets, 
he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his arms. 
Solomon remained where he was. 

‘““ How many are there in the rolls of roubles?” 
Father Christopher began. 

“The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the 
three-rouble notes in nineties, the twenty-five and 
hundred roubles in thousands. You count out seven 
thousand eight hundred for Varlamoy, and I will 
count out for Gusevitch. And mind you don’t make 
ai Mistakes yc 

Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much 
money as was lying on the table before him. There 


198 The Tales of Chekhov 


must have been a great deal of money, for the roll 
of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father 
Christopher put aside for Varlamov, seemed very 
small compared with the whole heap. At any other 
time such a mass of money would have impressed 
Yegorushka, and would have moved him to reflect 
how many cracknels, buns and poppy-cakes could be 
bought for that money. Now he looked at it list- 
lessly, only conscious of the disgusting smell of kero- 
sene and rotten apples that came from the heap of 
notes. He was exhausted by the jolting ride in the 
chaise, tired out and sleepy. His head was heavy, 
his eyes would hardly keep open and his thoughts 
were tangled like threads. If it had been possible 
he would have been relieved to lay his head on the 
table, so as not to see the lamp and the fingers 
moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his 
tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. 
When he tried to keep awake, the light of the lamp, 
the cups and the fingers grew double, the samovar 
heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed even 
more acrid and disgusting. 

“ Ah, money, money!” sighed: Father Chris- 
topher, smiling. ‘‘ You bring trouble! Now I ex- 
pect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am 
going to bring him a heap of money like this.” 

‘Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn’t 
understand business,’ said Kuzmitchov in an under- 
tone; ‘‘ he undertakes what isn’t his work, but you 
understand and can judge. You had better hand 
over your wool to me, as I have said already, and I 
would give you half a rouble above my own price — 
yes, I would, simply out of regard for you. . . .” 


The Steppe 199 


“No, Ivan Ivanitch.” Father Christopher 
sighed. ‘I thank you for your kindness. . . . Of 
course, if it were for me to decide, I shouldn’t think 
twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine, as 
you know. .. .” 

Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying 
from delicacy not to look at the heaps of money, he 
stole up to Yegorushka and pulled at his shirt from 
behind. 

“Come along, little gentleman,” he said in an 
undertone, ‘‘ come and see the little bear I can show 
you! Such a queer, cross little bear. Oo-oo!”’ 

The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged him- 
self after Moisey Moisevitch to see the bear. He 
went into a little room, where, before he saw any- 
thing, he felt he could not breathe from the smell of 
something sour and decaying, which was much 
stronger here than in the big room and probably 
spread from this room all over the house. One 
part of the room was occupied by a big bed, cov- 
ered with a greasy quilt and another by a chest of 
drawers and heaps of rags of all kinds from a wom- 
an’s stiff petticoat to children’s little breeches 
and braces. A tallow candle stood on the chest of. 
drawers. 

Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a 
big fat Jewess with her hair hanging loose, in a red 
flannel skirt with black sprigs on it; she turned with 
dificulty in the narrow space between the bed and 
the chest of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning 
as though she had toothache. On seeing Yego- 
rushka, she made a doleful, woe-begone face, heaved 
a long-drawn-out sigh, and before he had time to 


200 The Tales of Chekhov 


look round, put to his lips a slice of bread smeared 
with honey. 

ViBat it: dearte earth’ she lisardsi i oun are 
here without your mamma, and no one to look after 
VOU Fatnt aps, 

Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies 
and poppy-cakes he had every day at home, he did 
not think very much of the honey, which was mixed 
with wax and bees’ wings. He ate while Moisey 
Moisevitch and the Jewess looked at him and sighed. 

‘‘Where are you going, dearie?’’ asked the 
Jewess. 

“To school,” answered Yegorushka. 

“And how many brothers and sisters have you 
gotr,? 

‘‘T am the only one; there are no others.” 

‘“Q-oh!” sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes 
upward. ‘“ Poor mamma, poor mamma! How 
she will weep and miss you! We are going to send 
our Nahum to school in a year. O-oh!”’ 

“Ah, Nahum, Nahum!”’ sighed Moisey Moise- 
vitch, andl the skin of his pale face twitched nery- 
ously. ‘‘ And he is so delicate.” 

The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it 
appeared a child’s curly head on a very thin neck; 
two black eyes gleamed and stared with curiosity at 
Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch 
and the Jewess went to the chest of drawers and 
began talking in Yiddish. Moisey Moisevitch spoke 
in a low bass undertone, and altogether his talk in 
Yiddish was like a continual ‘ ghaal-ghaal-ghaal- 
ghaal, ” while his wife answered him in a shrill 
voice like a turkeycock’s, and the whole effect of 


The Steppe 201 


her talk was something like ‘‘ Too-too-too-too!”’ 
While they were consulting, another little curly head 
on a thin neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a 
third, then a fourth. . . . If Yegorushka had had a 
fertile imagination he might have imagined that the 
hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the quilt. 

‘“ Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!”’ said Moisey Moise- 
vitch. 

‘* Too0-too-too-too! ’? answered the Jewess. 

The consultation ended in the Jewess’s diving 
with a deep sigh into the chest of drawers, and, 
unwrapping some sort of green rag there, she took 
out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart. 

‘Take it, dearie,’ she said, giving Yegorushka 
the cake; ‘‘ you have no mamma now —no one to 
give you nice things.” 

Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and stag- 
gered to the door, as he could not go on breathing 
the foul, sour air in which the innkeeper and his wife 
lived. Going back to the big room, he settled him- 
self more comfortably on the sofa and gave up try- 
ing to check his straying thoughts. 

As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out 
the notes he put them back into the bag. He did 
not treat them very respectfully and stuffed them 
into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indiffer- 
ently as though they had not been money but waste 
paper. 

Father Christopher was talking to Solomon. 

“Well, Solomon the Wise!” he said, yawning 
and making the sign of the cross over his mouth. 
‘“ How is business?” 

‘“ What sort of business are you talking about?” 


DOD The Tales of Chekhov 


asked Solomon, and he looked as fiendish, as though 
it were a hint of some crime on his part. 

‘Oh, things in general. What are you doing?” 

‘“ What am I doing?” Solomon repeated, and he 
shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘ The same as everyone 
else. . . . Yousee, lama menial, I am my brother’s 
servant; my brother’s the servant of the visitors; the 
visitors are Varlamov’s servants; and if I had ten 
millions, Varlamov would be my servant.” 

‘Why would he be your servant?” 

‘Why, because there) isn’t a gentlemanor 
millionaire who isn’t ready to lick the hand of a 
scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck. Now, 
I am a scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks 
at me as though I were a dog, but if I had money 
Varlamov would play the fool before me just as 
Moisey does before you.”’ 

Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at 
each other. Neither of them understood Solomon. 
Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly, and 
asked: 

“How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, 
you blockhead? ”’ 

‘“T am not such a fool as to put myself on a level 
with Varlamov,” answered Solomon, looking sarcas- 
tically at the speaker. ‘‘ Though Varlamov is a 
Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and 
gain are all he lives for, but I threw my money in 
the stove! I don’t want money, or land, or sheep, 
and there is no need for people to be afraid of me 
and to take off their hats when I pass. So I am 
wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man! ” 


A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solo- 


The Steppe 203 


mon in a hoarse hollow voice choked with hatred, in 
hurried stuttering phrases, talking about the Jews. 
At first he talked correctly in Russian, then he fell 
into the tone of a Jewish recitation, and began speak- 
ing as he had done at the fair with an exaggerated 
Jewish accent. 

“Stop! .. .” Father Christopher said’ to him. 
“Tf you don’t like your religion you had better 
change it, but to laugh at it is a sin; it is only the 
lowest of the low who will make fun of his religion.” 

“You don’t understand,’ Solomon cut him short 
rudely. “I am talking of one thing and you are 
talking of something else. . . .” 

‘“One can see you are a foolish fellow,” sighed 
Father Christopher. ‘‘ I admonish you to the best 
of my ability, and you are angry. I speak to you 
like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkey- 
cock: ‘Bla—bla—bla!’ You really are a 
queer fellow. . . .” 

Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anx- 
iously at Solomon and at his visitors, and again the 
skin on his face quivered nervously. Yegorushka 
shook his head and looked about him; he caught a 
passing glimpse of Solomon’s face at the very mo- 
ment when it was turned three-quarters towards him 
and when the shadow of his long nose divided his 
left cheek in half; the contemptuous smile mingled 
with that shadow; the gleaming sarcastic eyes, the 
haughty expression, and the whole plucked-looking 
little figure, dancing and doubling itself before 
Yegorushka’s eyes, made him now not like a buffoon, 
but like something one sometimes dreams of, like 
an evil spirit. 


204 The Tales of Chekhov 


“What a ferocious fellow you've got here, 
Moisey Moisevitch! God bless him!” said Father 
Christopher with a smile. ‘‘ You ought to find him 
a place or a wife or something. . . . There’s no 
knowing what to make of him. . . .” 

Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moise- 
vitch looked uneasily and inquiringly at his brother 
and the visitors again. 

“Solomon, go away!” he said shortly. “Go 
away!’ and he added something in Yiddish. Solo- 
mon gave an abrupt laugh and went out. 

“What was it?’’ Moisey Moisevitch asked 
Father Christopher anxiously. 

‘““He forgets himself,’ answered Kuzmitchov. 
“‘ He’s rude and thinks too much of himself.” 

“‘ T knew it!’ Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, 
clasping | his’\hands)/\\"".Oh ‘dear, oh\dear lhe 
muttered in a low voice. ‘‘ Be so kind as to excuse 
it, and don’t be angry. He is such a queer fellow, 
such a queer fellow! Oh dear, oh dear! He is 
my own brother, but I have never had anything but 
trouble from him. You know he’s. . .” 

Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his fore- 
head and went on: 

‘Heiss not in, /his)irieht mind)... \.'chels lope- 
less. And I don’t know what I am to do with him! 
He cares for nobody, he respects nobody, and is 
afraid of nobody. ... You know he laughs at 
everybody, he says silly things, speaks familiarly to 
anyone. You wouldn’t believe it, Varlamov came 
here one day and Solomon said such things to him 
that he gave us both a taste of his whip. . . . But 
why whip me? Was it my fault? God has robbed 


The Steppe 205 


him of his wits, so it is God’s will, and how am I to 
blame?” 

Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was 
still muttering in an undertone and sighing: 

‘He does not sleep at night, and is always think- 
ing and thinking and thinking, and what he is think- 
ing about God only knows. If you go to him at 
night he is angry and laughs. He doesn’t like me 
either. . . . And there is nothing he wants! When 
our father died he left us each six thousand roubles. 
I bought myself an inn, married, and now I have 
children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. 
Such a pity, such a pity! Why burn it? If he 
didn’t want it he could give it to me, but why burn 
itary 

Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor 
shook under footsteps. Yegorushka felt a draught 
of cold air, and it seemed to him as though some big 
black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its 
wings close in his face. He opened his eyes. .. . 
His uncle was standing by the sofa with his sack in 
his hands ready for departure; Father Christopher, 
holding his broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing to 
someone and smiling —not his usual soft kindly 
smile, but a respectful forced smile which did not 
suit his face at all— while Moisey Moisevitch 
looked as though his body had been broken into three 
parts, and he were balancing and doing his utmost 
not to drop to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the 
corner with his arms folded, as though nothing had 
happened, and smiled contemptuously as before. 

“Your Excellency must excuse us for not being 
tidy,’ moaned Moisey Moisevitch with the agoniz- 


206 The Tales of Chekhov 


ingly sweet smile, taking no more notice of Kuz- 
mitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his 
whole person so as to avoid dropping to pieces. 
‘We are plain folks, your Excellency.” 

Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of 
the room there really was standing an Excellency, in 
the form of a young plump and very beautiful 
woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before 
Yegorushka had time to examine her features the im- 
age of the solitary graceful poplar he had seen that 
day on the hill for some reason came into his mind. 

‘Has Varlamov been here to-day?” a woman’s 
voice inquired. 

‘No, your Excellency,” said Moisey Moisevitch. 

‘If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come 
and see me for a minute.” 

All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw 
half an inch from his eyes velvety black eyebrows, 
big brown eyes, delicate feminine cheeks with 
dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over 
the face like sunbeams. There was a glorious scent. 

‘What a pretty boy!” said the lady. ‘‘ Whose 
boy is it? Kazimir Mihalovitch, look what a 
charming fellow! Good heavens, he is asleep! ” 

And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both 
cheeks, and he smiled and, thinking he was asleep, 
shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked, and there 
was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and 
going out. 

‘““Yegorushka, Yegorushka!”’ he heard two bass 
voices whisper. ‘‘ Get up; it is time to start.” 

Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on 
his feet and led him by the arm. On the way he 


The Steppe 207 


half-opened his eyes and once more saw the beautiful 
lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She 
was standing in the middle of the room and watched 
him go out, smiling at him and nodding her head 
ina friendly way. As he got near the door he saw 
a handsome, stoutly built, dark man in a bowler hat 
and in leather gaiters. ‘This must have been the 
lady’s escort. 

‘“‘Woa!” he heard from the yard. 

At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid 
new carriage and a pair of black horses. On the 
box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip in his 
hands. No one but Solomon came to see the 
travellers off. His face was tense with a desire to 
laugh; he looked as though he were waiting im- 
patiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he might 
laugh at them without restraint. 

“The Countess Dranitsky,” whispered Father 
Christopher, clambering into the chaise. 

“Yes, Countess Dranitsky,’’ repeated Kuz- 
mitchov, also in a whisper. 

The impression made by the arrival of the 
countess was probably very great, for even Deniska 
spoke in a whisper, and only ventured to lash his 
bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter 
of a mile away and nothing could be seen of the inn 
but a dim light. 


LY, 


Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of 
whom people talked so much, whom Solomon de- 
spised, and whom even the beautiful countess 


208 The Tales of Chekhov 


needed? Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yego- 
rushka, half asleep, thought about this person. He 
had never seen him. But he had often heard of him 
and pictured him in his imagination. He knew that 
Varlamov possessed several tens of thousands of 
acres of land, about a hundred thousand sheep, and 
a great deal of money. Of his manner of life and 
occupation Yegorushka knew nothing, except that 
he was always ‘‘ going his rounds in these parts,” 
and he was always being looked for. 

At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of 
the Countess Dranitsky, too. She, too, had some 
tens of thousands of acres, a great many sheep, a 
stud farm and a great deal of money, but she did 
not “go rounds,” but lived at home in a splendid 
house and grounds, about which Ivan Ivanitch, who 
had been more than once at the countess’s on busi- 
ness, and other acquaintances told many marvellous 
tales; thus, for instance, they said that in the 
countess’s drawing-room, where the portraits of all 
the kings of Poland hung on the walls, there was a 
big table-clock in the form of a rock, on the rock a 
gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the 
horse the figure of a rider also of gold, who bran- 
dished his sword to right and to left whenever the 
clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year the 
countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and 
officials of the whole province were invited, and to 
which even Varlamov used to come; all the visitors 
drank tea from silver samovars, ate all sorts of ex- 
traordinary things (they had strawberries and rasp- 
berries, for instance, in winter at Christmas), and 
danced to a band which played day and night... . 


The Steppe 209 


‘“ And how beautiful she is,” thought Yegorushka, 
remembering her face and smile. 

Kuzmitchoy, too, was probably thinking about 
the countess. For when the chaise had driven a 
mile and a half he said: 

‘But doesn’t that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder 
her right and left! The year before last when, 
do you remember, I bought some wool from her, 
he made over three thousand from my purchase 
alone.” 

“That is Just what you would expect from a 
Pole,” said Father Christopher. 

"And, ‘little ‘does: it; trouble “her, Young and 
foolish, as they say, her head is full of nonsense.” 

Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of 
nothing but Varlamov and the countess, particularly 
the latter. His drowsy brain utterly refused or- 
dinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only 
fantastic fairy-tale images, which have the advantage 
of springing into the brain of themselves without 
any effort on the part of the thinker, and completely 
vanishing of themselves at a mere shake of the 
head; and, indeed, nothing that was around him dis- 
posed to ordinary thoughts. On the right there 
were the dark hills which seemed to be screening 
something unseen and terrible; on the left the whole 
sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson 
glow, and it was hard to tell whether there was a fire 
somewhere, or whether it was the moon about to rise. 
As by day the distance could be seen, but its tender 
lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening dark- 
ness, in which the whole steppe was hidden like 
Moisey Moisevitch’s children under the quilt. 


BLO The Tales of Chekhov 


Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July 
nights, the nightingale does not sing in the wood- 
land marsh, and there is no scent of flowers, but 
still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon 
as the sun goes down and the darkness enfolds the 
earth, the day’s weariness is forgotten, everything 
is forgiven, and the steppe breathes a light sigh from 
its broad bosom. As though because the grass 
cannot see in the dark that it has grown old, a gay 
youthful twitter rises up from it, such as is not heard 
by day; chirruping, twittering, whistling, scratching, 
the basses, tenors and sopranos of the steppe all 
mingle in an incessant, monotonous roar of sound in 
which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. 
The monotonous twitter soothes to sleep like a 
lullaby; you drive and feel you are falling asleep, 
but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry of a 
wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying 
out in wonder ‘ A-ah, a-ah!’”’ and slumber closes 
one’s eyelids again. Or you drive by a little creek 
where there are bushes and hear the bird, called by 
the steppe dwellers ‘“‘the sleeper,’ call ‘‘ Asleep, 
asleep, asleep!’ while another laughs or breaks into 
trills of hysterical weeping — that is the owl. For 
whom do they call and who hears them on that plain, 
God only knows, but there is deep sadness and 
lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a scent of 
hay and dry grass and belated flowers, but the scent 
is heavy, sweetly mawkish and soft. 

Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is 
hard to make out the colours and the outlines of 
objects. Everything looks different from what it is. 
You drive on and suddenly see standing before you 


The Steppe pan 


right in the roadway a dark figure like a monk; it 
stands motionless, waiting, holding something in its 
hands. . . . Canitbearobber? The figure comes 
closer, grows bigger; now it is on a level with the 
chaise, and you see it is not a man, but a solitary 
bush or a great stone. Such motionless expectant 
figures stand on the low hills, hide behind the old 
barrows, peep out from the high grass, and they all 
look like human beings and arouse suspicion. 

And when the moon rises the night becomes pale 
and dim. ‘The mist seems to have passed away. 
The air is transparent, fresh and warm; one can see 
well in all directions and even distinguish the sepa- 
rate stalks of grass by the wayside. Stones and bits 
of pots can be seen at a long distance. ‘The sus- 
picious figures like monks look blacker against the 
light background of the night, and seem more 
sinister. More and more often in the midst of the 
monotonous chirruping there comes the sound of 
the “ A-ah, a-ah!”’ of astonishment troubling the 
motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious 
bird. Broad shadows move across the plain like 
clouds across the sky, and in the inconceivable dis- 
tance, if you look long and intently at it, misty 
monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against 
another. . . . It is rather uncanny. One glances at 
the pale green, star-spangled sky on which there is 
no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the warm 
air is motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid 
to stir: she is afraid and reluctant to lose one instant 
of life. Of the unfathomable depth and infinity of 
the sky one can only form a conception at sea and 
on the steppe by night when the moon is shining. 


iD The Tales of Chekhov 


It is terribly lonely and caressing; it looks down 
languid and alluring, and its caressing sweetness 
makes one giddy. 

You drive on for one hour, for a second... . 
You meet upon the way a silent old barrow or a 
stone figure put up God knows when and by whom; 
a nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and 
little by little those legends of the steppes, the tales 
of men you have met, the stories of some old nurse 
from the steppe, and all the things you have man- 
aged to.see and treasure in your soul, come back to 
your mind. And then in the churring of insects, in 
the sinister figures, in the ancient barrows, in the 
blue sky, in the moonlight, in the flight of the night- 
bird, in everything you see and hear, triumphant 
beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the passion- 
ate thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul 
responds to the call of her lovely austere fatherland, 
and longs to fly over the steppes with the nightbird. 
And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance of 
happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, 
as though the steppe knew she was solitary, knew 
that her wealth and her inspiration were wasted for 
the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by any- 
one; and through the joyful clamour one hears her 
mournful, hopeless call for singers, singers! 

““Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is _ every- 
thing all right?” 

‘* First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch! ”’ 

“ Haven’t you seen Varlamov, lads?” 

‘“'No, we haven’t.”’ 

Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The 
chaise had stopped. On the right the train of wag- 


The Steppe 212 


gons stretched for a long way ahead on the road, and 
men were moving to and fro near them. All the 
waggons being loaded up with great bales of wool 
looked very high and fat, while the horses looked 
short-legged and little. 

‘Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans’! ” 
Kuzmitchov said aloud. ‘“‘ The Jew told us that 
Varlamov was putting up for the night at the Molo- 
kans’. So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!” 

““ Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch,” several voices replied. 

‘““T say, lads,” Kuzmitchov cried briskly, “ you 
take my little lad along with you! Why should he 
go jolting off with us for nothing? You put him 
on the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, 
and we shall overtake you. Get down, Yegor! 
CGoronantscalliirioht.y 15 6) 

Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Sev- 
eral hands caught him, lifted him high into the air, 
and he found himself on something big, soft, and 
rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as 
though the sky were quite close and the earth far 
away. 

“Hey, take his little coat!’’ Deniska shouted 
from somewhere far below. 

His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell 
close to Yegorushka. Anxious not to think of any- 
thing, he quickly put his bundle under his head and 
covered himself with his coat, and stretching his 
legs out and shrinking a little from the dew, he 
laughed with content. 

“* Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . .” he thought. 

** Don’t be unkind to him, you devils!’ he heard 
Deniska’s voice below. 


DA The Tales of Chekhov 


‘‘ Good-bye, lads; good luck to you,” shouted Kuz- 
mitchov. “I rely upon you! ”’ 

‘Don’t you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch! ”’ 

Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked 
and started, not along the road, but somewhere off 
to the side. For two minutes there was silence, as 
though the waggons were asleep and there was no 
sound except the clanking of the pails tied on at the 
back of the chaise as it slowly died away in the dis- 
tance. Then someone at the head of the waggons 
shouted : 

Viral) Sta-artl 

The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the 
second, |then' the /third:)).).\'. "Yegorushka (felt thie 
waggon he was on sway and creak also. ‘The wag- 
gons were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold 
of the cord with which the bales were tied on, 
laughed again with content, shifted the cake in his 
pocket, and fell asleep just as he did in his bed at 
Homes hie 

When he woke up the sun had risen, it was 
screened by an ancient barrow, and, trying to shed its 
light) upon ‘the ‘earth, it scattered’ its ‘beams\in ‘all 
directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It 
seemed to Yegorushka that it was not in its proper 
place, as the day before it had risen behind his back, 
and now it was much more to his left. . . . And the 
whole landscape was different. ‘There were no hills 
now, but on all sides, wherever one looked, there 
stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and there 
upon it small barrows rose up and rooks flew as 
they had done the day before. The belfries and 
huts of some village showed white in the distance 


The Steppe 215, 


ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were 
at home baking and cooking —that could be seen 
by the smoke which rose from every chimney and 
hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village. 
In between the huts and beyond the church there 
were blue glimpses of a river, and beyond the river a 
misty distance. But nothing was so different from 
yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily 
broad, spread out and titanic, stretched over the 
steppe by way of aroad. It was a grey streak well 
trodden down and covered with dust, like all roads. 
Its width puzzled Yegorushka and brought thoughts 
of fairy tales to his mind. Who travelled along 
that road? Who needed so much space? It was 
strange and unintelligible. It might have been sup- 
posed that giants with immense strides, such as Ilya 
Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still sur- 
viving in Russia, and that their gigantic steeds were 
still alive. Yegorushka, looking at the road, 
imagined some half a dozen high chariots racing 
along side by side, like some he used to see in pictures 
in his Scripture history; these chariots were each 
drawn by six wild furious horses, and their great 
wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while the 
horses were driven by men such as one may see in 
one’s dreams or in imagination brooding over fairy 
tales. And if those figures had existed, how per- 
fectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they 
would have been! 

Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched 
along the right side of the road to its furthermost 
limit. Growing smaller and smaller they disap- 
peared near the village behind the huts and green 


216 The Tales of Chekhov 


trees, and then again came into sight in the lilac 
distance in the form of very small thin sticks that 
looked like pencils stuck into the ground. Hawks, 
falcons, and crows sat on the wires and looked in- 
differently at the moving waggons. 

Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, 
and so could see the whole string. There were 
about twenty waggons, and there was a driver to 
every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one 
in which Yegorushka was, there walked an old man 
with a grey beard, as short and lean as Father Chris- 
topher, but with a sunburnt, stern and brooding face. 
It is very possible that the old man was not stern and 
not brooding, but his red eyelids and his sharp long 
nose gave his face a stern frigid expression such as 
is common with people in the habit of continually 
thinking of serious things in solitude. Like Father 
Christopher he was wearing a wide-brimmed top- 
hat, not like a gentleman’s, but made of brown felt, 
and in shape more like a cone with the top cut off 
than a realtop-hat. Probably from a habit acquired 
in cold winters, when he must more than once have 
been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the wag- 
gons, he kept slapping his thighs and stamping with 
his feet as he walked. Noticing that Yegorushka 
was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging 
his shoulders as though from the cold: 

‘“Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the 
son of Ivan Ivanitch? ” 

‘ No; his nephew. .. . 

‘’ Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken 
off my boots and am hopping along barefoot. My 
feet are bad; they are swollen, and it’s easier without 


” 


The Steppe pHiy: 


my boots... easier, youngster . . . without 
boots, I mean. . . . So youare hisnephew? He is 
a good man; no harm in him. . . . God give him 
health, 3: . Nocharm jin hinw.)) Oil emeantlven 
Ivanitch. . . . He has gone to the Molokans’. . . . 
O Lord, have mercy upon us!” 

The old man talked, too, as though it were very 
cold, pausing and not opening his mouth properly; 
and he mispronounced the labial consonants, stutter- 
ing over them as though his lips were frozen. As 
he talked to Yegorushka he did not once smile, and 
he seemed stern. 

Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man 
wearing a long reddish-brown coat, a cap and high 
boots with sagging bootlegs and carrying a whip 
in his hand. ‘This was not an old man, only about 
forty. When he looked round Yegorushka saw a 
long red face with a scanty goat-beard and a spongy 
looking swelling under his right eye. Apart from 
this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar 
thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his 
left hand he carried a whip, while he waved the right 
as though he were conducting an unseen choir; from 
time to time he put the whip under his arm, and then 
he conducted with both hands and hummed some- 
thing to himself. 

The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with 
extremely sloping shoulders and a back as flat as a 
board. He held himself as stiffly erect as though 
he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure. 
His hands did not swing as he walked, but hung 
down as if they were straight sticks, and he strode 
along in a wooden way, after the manner of toy 


218 The Tales of Chekhov 


soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and try- 
ing to take as long steps as possible. While the 
old man or the owner of the spongy swelling were 
taking two steps he succeeded in taking only one, 
and so it seemed as though he were walking more 
slowly than any of them, and would drop behind. 
His face was tied up in a rag, and on his head some- 
thing stuck up that looked like a monk’s peaked 
cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, 
with full dark blue trousers and bark shoes. 

Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that 
were farther on. He lay on his stomach, picked a 
little hole in the bale, and, having nothing better to 
do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The 
old man trudging along below him turned out not 
to be so stern as one might have supposed from his 
face. Having begun a conversation, he did not let 
it drop. 

‘“ Where are you going?” he asked, stamping with 
his feet. 

‘To school,” answered Yegorushka. 

To school?) Ahaly)..\.\\Well, may the Queen 
of Heaven help you. Yes. One brain is good, but 
two are better. ’o one man God gives one brain, 
to another two brains, and to another three... . 
To another three, that is true. . . . One brain you 
are born with, one you get from learning, and a third 
with a good life. So you see, my lad, it is a good 
thing if a man has three brains. Living is easier 
for him, and, what’s more, dying is, too. Dying is, 
too. . . . And we shall all die for sure.” 

The old man scratched his forehead, glanced up- 
wards at Yegorushka with his red eyes, and went on: 


The Steppe 219 


“Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slav- 
yanoserbsk, brought a little lad to school, too, last 
year. I don’t know how he is getting on there in 
studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little 
lad. . . . God give them help, they are nice gentle- 
men. Yes, he, too, brought his boy to school. . . . 
In Slavyanoserbsk there is no establishment, I sup- 
pose, for study. (No. i...) But itis a snice town: 
. . . There’s an ordinary school for simple folks, 
but for the higher studies there is nothing. No, 
that site." Whats your name? .) 4.) 

““ Yegorushka.”’ 

 Vegory, ithen,)2. Uhe holy martyr Weaary 
the Bearer of Victory, whose day is the twenty-third 
of April. And my christian name is Panteley, . . . 
Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . .. We are Holo- 
dovs. . . . I ama native of — maybe you've heard 
of it — Tim in the province of Kursk. My brothers 
are artisans and work at trades in the town, but I 


am a peasant. ... 1 have remained a peasant. 
Seven years ago I went there— home, I mean. I 
went to the village and to the town. . . . To Tim, 


I mean. ‘Then, thank God, they were all alive and 
wells... 2 but now: I don't ‘know. 3\:) Maybe 
some of them are dead. . . . And it’s time they 
did die, for some of them are older than I am. 
Death is all right; it is good so long, of course, as 
one does not die without repentance. ‘There is no 
worse evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent 
death is a joy to the devil. And if you want to die 
penitent, so that you may not be forbidden to enter 
the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr 
Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that’s the 


220 The Tales of Chekhov 


truth. . . . For God has given her such a place in 
the heavens that everyone has the right to pray to 
her for penitence.” 

Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did 
not trouble whether Yegorushka heard him or not. 
He talked listlessly, mumbling to himself, without 
raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in telling 
him a great deal in a short time. All he said was 
made up of fragments that had very little connection 
with one another, and quite uninteresting for Yego- 
rushka. Possibly he talked only in order to reckon 
over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in 
silence, in order to see if they were all there. After 
talking of repentance, he spoke about a certain 
Maxim Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk. 

“Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, 
thats itrueye ie 

One of the waggoners walking in front darted 
from his place, ran to one side and began lashing 
on the ground with his whip. He was a stalwart, 
broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen 
hair and a look of great health and vigour. Judg- 
ing from the movements of his shoulders and the 
whip, and the eagerness expressed in his attitude, 
he was beating something alive. Another wag- 
goner, a short stubby little man with a bushy black 
beard, wearing a waistcoat and a shirt outside his 
trousers, ran up to him. ‘The latter broke into a 
deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: “I 
say, lads, Dymov has killed a snake! ” 

There are people whose intelligence can be gauged 
at once by their voice and laughter. The man with 
the black beard belonged to that class of fortunate 


The Steppe 21 


individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be felt in 
his voice and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had 
finished, and lifting from the ground with his whip 
something like a cord, flung it with a laugh into the 
Cart. 

‘“That’s not a viper; it’s a grass snake! ”’ shouted 
someone. 

The man with the wooden gait and the bandage 
round his face strode up quickly to the dead snake, 
glanced at it and flung up his stick-like arms. 

“You jail-bird!”’ he cried in a hollow wailing 
voice. ‘‘ What have you killed a grass snake for? 
What had he done to you, you damned brute? 
Look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you 
like to be treated so?” 

‘’ Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that’s true,” 
Panteley muttered placidly, “they ought not. ... 
They are not vipers; though it looks like a snake, 
it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It’s friendly 
to man, the grass snake is.” 

Dymov and the man with the black beard were 
probably ashamed, for they laughed loudly, and not 
answering, slouched lazily back to their waggons. 
When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot 
where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied 
up standing over it turned to Panteley and asked in 
a tearful voice: 

‘Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass 
snake for?” 

His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small 
and dingy looking; his face was grey, sickly and 
looked somehow dingy too while his chin was red 
and seemed very much swollen. 


222 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘“‘ Grandfather, what did he kill it for?” he re- 
peated, striding along beside Panteley. 

‘“A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and 
that is why he does it,” answered the old man; “ but 
he oughtn't’ to) killa) enass snake, that's true. (20. 
Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills everything 
he comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He 
ought to have taken its part, but instead of that, he 
goes ol into | Taa-ha-hal and)’ Elotho-holivy 
But don’t be angry, Vassya. . . . Why be angry? 
They’ve killed it — well, never mind them. Dymov 
is a rufian and Kiruha acted from foolishness — 
never mind. . . . They are foolish people without 
understanding — but there, don’t mind them. 
Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn't; 
MO De I MMEVEn MGGess\ ui cKithat (isi EEE uta ee Mace 
cause he is a man of education, while they are stupid. 
. . . Emelyan, he doesn’t touch things.” 

‘The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the 
spongy swelling on his face, who was conducting an 
unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his name, and wait- 
ing till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he 
walked beside them. 

‘What are you talking about?”’ he asked in a 
husky muffled voice. | 

‘Why, Vassya here is angry,’ said Panteley. 
“So I have been saying things to him to stop his 
being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen feet hurt! 
Oh, oh! They are more inflamed than ever for 
Sunday, God’s holy day!” 

“It’s from walking,” observed Vassya. 

‘No, lad, no. It’s not from walking. When [I 


The Steppe 223 


i 


walk it seems easier; when I lie down and get warm, 
. it’s deadly. Walking is easier for me.” 

Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked be- 
tween Panteley and Vassya and waved his arms, as 
though they were going to sing. After waving them 
a little while he dropped them, and croaked out 
hopelessly : 

‘I have no voice. It’s a real misfortune. All 
last night and this morning I have been haunted by 
the trio ‘Lord, have Mercy’ that we sang at the 
wedding at Marionovsky’s. It’s in my head and 
in my throat. It seems as though I could sing it, 
but I can’t; I have no voice.” 

He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on: 

“For fifteen years I was inthe choir. In all the 
Lugansky works there was, maybe, no one with a 
voice like mine. But, confound it, I bathed two 
years ago in the Donets, and I can’t get a single 
note true ever since. I took cold in my throat. 
And without a voice I am like a workman without 
hands.” 

elthat struc, '/Panteley aoreed. 

“T think of myself as a ruined man and nothing 
more.”’ 

At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight 
of Yegorushka. His eyes grew moist and smaller 
than ever. 

‘“There’s a little gentleman driving with us,” and 
he covered his nose with his sleeve as though he 
were bashful. ‘‘ What a grand driver! Stay with 
us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool.” 

The incongruity of one person being at once a 


b] 


224 The Tales of Chekhov 


little gentleman and a waggon driver seemed to 
strike him as very queer and funny, for he burst 
into a loud guftaw, and went on enlarging upon 
the idea. Emelyan glanced upwards at Yegorushka, 
too, but coldly and cursorily. He was absorbed in 
his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya, 
would not have noticed Yegorushka’s presence. 
Before five minutes had passed he was waving his 
arms again, then describing to his companions the 
beauties of the wedding anthem, “ Lord, have 
Mercy,” which he had remembered in the night. 
He put the whip under his arm and waved both 
hands. 

A mile from the village the waggons stopped 
by a well with a crane. Letting his pail down into 
the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on his stomach 
on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his 
shoulders, and part of his chest into the black hole, 
so that Yegorushka could see nothing but his short 
legs, which scarcely touched the ground. Seeing the 
reflection of his head far down at the bottom of the 
well, he was delighted and went off into his deep 
bass stupid laugh, and the echo from the well an- 
swered him. When he got up his neck and face 
were as red as beetroot. The first to run up and 
drink was Dymov. He drank laughing, often turn- 
ing from the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, 
then he turned round, and uttered aloud, to be heard 
all over the steppe, five very bad words. Yego- 
rushka did not understand the meaning of such words, 
but he knew very well they were bad words. He 
knew the repulsion his friends and relations silently 
felt for such words. He himself, without knowing 


The Steppe gO 


why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to 
think that only drunk and disorderly people enjoy 
the privilege of uttering such words aloud. He re- 
membered the murder of the grass snake, listened 
to Dymov’s laughter, and felt something like hatred 
for the man. And as ill-luck would have it, Dymov 
at that moment caught sight of Yegorushka, who 
had climbed down from the waggon and gone up to 
the well. He laughed aloud and shouted: 

‘““T say, lads, the old man has been brought to 
bed of a boy in the night!” 

Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. 
Someone else laughed too, while Yegorushka crim- 
soned and made up his mind finally that Dymov was 
a very wicked man. 

With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened 
on his chest and no hat on, Dymov looked handsome 
and exceptionally strong; in every movement he 
made one could see the reckless dare-devil and 
athlete, knowing his value. He _ shrugged his 
shoulders, put his arms akimbo, talked and laughed 
louder than any of the rest, and looked as though he 
were going to lift up something: very heavy with one 
hand and astonish the whole world by doing so. 
His mischievous mocking eyes glided over the road, 
the waggons, and the sky without resting on any- 
thing, and seemed looking for someone to kill, just 
as a pastime, and something to laugh at. Evidently 
he was afraid of no one, would stick at nothing, and 
most likely was not in the least interested in Yego- 
rushka’s opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka mean- 
while hated his flaxen head, his clear face, and his 
strength with his whole heart, listened with fear and 


226 The Tales of Chekhov 


loathing to his laughter, and kept thinking what 
word of abuse he could pay him out with. 

Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out 
of his pocket a little green glass of an ikon lamp, 
wiped it with a rag, filled it from the pail and drank 
from it, then filled it again, wrapped the little glass 
in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket. 

‘“ Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?” 
Yegoryshka asked him, surprised. 

‘“One man drinks out of a pail and another out 
of a lamp,’ the old man answered evasively. 


‘Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink out 
of the pail—vwell, drink, and may it do you 
POO. a 

“You darling, you beauty!’ Vassya said sud- 
deny, in’ /'a)icanessing’) plaintive) voice. 4.) wou 
darling!” 


His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were 
moist and smiling, and his face wore the same ex- 
pression as when he had looked at Yegorushka. 

‘Who is it you are talking to?’ asked Kiruha. 

*) Avdarling fox, .):.). lying ‘on her back, playing 
like a dog.” 

Everyone began staring into the distance, looking 
for the fox, but no one could see it, only Vassya with 
his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he was enchanted 
by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as Yego- 
rushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted 
that the brown steppe was for him always full of 
life and interest. He had only to look into the 
distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some 
other animal keeping at a distance from men. 
There was nothing strange in seeing a hare running 


The Steppe 227 


away or a flying bustard — everyone crossing the 
steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to 
everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts 
when they were not running nor hiding, nor looking 
about them in alarm. Yet Vassya saw foxes play- 
ing, hares washing themselves with their paws, 
bustards preening their wings and hammering out 
their hollow nests. Thanks to this keenness of 
sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by every- 
one, another world of his own, accessible to no one 
else, and probably a very beautiful one, for when 
he saw something and was in raptures over it it was 
impossible not to envy him. 

When the waggons set off again, the church bells 
were ringing for service. 


Vv 


The train of waggons drew up on the bank of 
a river on one side of a village. The sun was 
blazing, as it had been the day before; the air was 
stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows 
on the bank, but the shade from them did not fall 
on the earth, but on the water, where it was wasted; 
even in the shade under the waggon it was stifling 
and wearisome. ‘The water, blue from the reflection 
of the sky in it, was alluring. 

Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed 
now for the first time, a Little Russian lad of 
eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt, and full 
trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, un- 
dressed quickly, ran along the steep bank and 


228 The Tales of Chekhov 


plunged into the water. He dived three times, then 
swam on his back and shut his eyes in his delight. 
His face was smiling and wrinkled up as though he 
were being tickled, hurt and amused. 

On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape 
from the sultry, stifling heat, the splash of water 
and the loud breathing of a man bathing sounds 
like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, 
looking at Styopka, undressed quickly and one after 
the other, laughing loudly in eager anticipation of 
their enjoyment, dropped into the water, and the 
quiet, modest little river resounded with snorting and 
splashing and shouting. Kiruha coughed, laughed 
and shouted as though they were trying to drown 
him, while Dymov chased him and tried to catch him 
by the leg. 

‘“Ha-ha-ha!”’ he shouted. ‘‘ Catch him! Hold 
him!” 

Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his ex- 
pression was the same as it had been on dry land, 
stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as though 
someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and 
hit him on the head with the butt-end of an axe. 
Yegorushka undressed, too, but did not let himself 
down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap 
from the height of about ten feet. Describing an 
arc in the air, he fell into the water, sank deep, but 
did not reach the bottom; some force, cold and 
pleasant to the touch, seemed to hold him up and 
bring him back to the surface. He popped out and, 
snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but 
the sun was reflected in the water quite close to his 
face. At first blinding spots of light, then rainbow 


- 


The Steppe 229 


colours and dark patches, flitted before his eyes. 
He made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in the 
water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on 
a moonlight night. Again the same force would 
not let him touch the bottom and stay in the cool- 
ness, but lifted him to the surface. He popped out 
and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of 
space and freshness, not only in his chest, but in 
his stomach. Then, to get from the water every- 
thing he possibly could get, he allowed himself every 
luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, 
frolicked, swam on his face, on his side, on his back 
and standing up — just as he pleased till he was ex- 
hausted. The other bank was thickly overgrown 
with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers 
of the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely 
tassels. In one place the reeds were shaking and 
nodding, with their flowers rustling — Styopka and 
Kiruha were hunting crayfish. 

‘“A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!”’ Kiruha 
cried triumphantly and actually showed a crayfish. 

Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and 
began fumbling among their roots. Burrowing in 
the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something sharp and 
unpleasant — perhaps it really was a crayfish. But 
at that minute someone seized him by the leg and 
pulled him to the surface. Spluttering and cough- 
ing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before 
him the wet grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. 
The impudent fellow was breathing hard, and from 
a look in his eyes he seemed inclined for further mis- 
chief. He held Yegorushka tight by the leg, and 
was lifting his hand to take hold of his neck. But 


220 The Tales of Chekhov 


Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and 
terror, as though disgusted at being touched and 
afraid that the bully would drown him, and said: 

“Fool! Dll punch you in the face.” 

Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his 
hatred, he thought a minute and added: 

\ You ‘blackeuard))\Yiou'son' af a bitch i” 

But Dymovy, as though nothing were the matter, 
took no further notice of Yegorushka, but swam off 
to Kiruha, shouting: 

* Hla-ha-ha let \us/eatch) fish! Mates, letus 
catch fish.” 

“To be sure,” Kiruha agreed; “ there must be a 
lot of fish here.”’ 

‘“ Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants 
FOUPAUMEL NS 

‘They won’t give it to me.” 

“They will, you ask them. ‘Teli them that they 
should give it to us for Christ’s sake, because we 
are just the same as pilgrims.”’ 

iyahatisierme: | 

Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed 
quickly, and without a cap on he ran, his full trousers 
flapping, to the village. ‘The water lost all its charm 
for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov. 
He got out and began dressing. -Panteley and 
Vassya were sitting on the steep bank, with their 
legs hanging down, looking at the bathers. Emelyan 
was standing naked, up to his knees in the water, 
holding on to the grass with one hand to prevent 
himself from falling while the other stroked his 
body. With his bony shoulder-blades, with the 
swelling under his eye, bending down and evidently 


The Steppe 23 


afraid of the water, he made a ludicrous figure. 
His face was grave and severe. He looked angrily 
at the water, as though he were just going to up- 
braid it for having given him cold in the Donets and 
robbed him of his voice. 

‘“ And why don’t you bathe?” Yegorushka asked 
Vassya. si 

“Oh, I don’t care\for 16, ¢)'.) 2? answered) Vassya: 

“‘ How is it your chin is swollen?” 

“Tt’s bad. ./.'/ FE used) to. work) at the) maten 
factory, little sir. . . . The doctor used to say that 
it would make my jaw rot. The air is not healthy 
there. There were three chaps beside me who had 
their jaws swollen, and with one of them it rotted 
away altogether.” 

Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov 
and Kiruha were already turning blue and getting 
hoarse by being so long in the water, but they set 
about fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep 
place beside the reeds; there Dymov was up to his 
neck, while the water went over squat Kiruha’s head. 
The latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while Dymov 
stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and got 
caught in the net; both flopped about in the water, 
and made a noise, and nothing but mischief came of 
their fishing. 

“Tt’s deep,” croaked Kiruha. ‘‘ You won't catch 
anything.” 

‘Don’t tug, you devil!’ shouted Dymov trying 
to put the net in the proper position. ‘‘ Hold it 
pes 
“You won’t catch anything here,’ Panteley 
shouted from the bank, ‘‘ You are only frighten- 


232 The Tales of Chekhov 


ing the fish, you stupids! Go more to the left! 
It’s shallower there! ”’ 

Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all 
drew a breath, and Dymov struck the place where 
it had vanished with his fist, and his face expressed 
vexation. 

“Ugh!” cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. 
+ Mouive detithe perce’ slip! It's cone! 

Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha 
picked out a shallower place, and then fishing began 
in earnest. They had wandered off some hundred 
paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently 
trying to go as deep as they could and as near the 
reeds, moving their legs a little at a time, drawing 
out the nets, beating the water with their fists to 
drive them towards the nets. From the reeds they 
got to the further bank; they drew the net out, then, 
with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as 
they walked, went back into the reeds. They were 
talking about something, but what it was no one 
could hear. ‘The sun was scorching their backs, the 
flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned 
from purple to crimson. Styopka was walking after 
them with a pail in his hands; he had tucked his 
shirt right up under his armpits, and was holding 
it up by the hem with his teeth. After every suc- 
cessful catch he lifted up some fish, and letting it 
shine in the sun, shouted: 

“Look at this perch! We've five like that! ” 

Every time Dymoy, Kiruha and Styopka pulled 
out the net they could be seen fumbling about in the 
mud in it, putting some things into the pail and 
throwing other things away; sometimes they passed 


The Steppe 233 


something that was in the net from hand to hand, 
examined it inquisitively, then threw that, too, away. 

‘What is it?’ they shouted to them from the 
bank. 

Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to 
make out his words. Then he climbed out of the 
water and, holding the pail in both hands, forgetting 
to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons. 

‘“Tt’s full!’ he shouted, breathing hard. “‘ Give 
us another! ” 

Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A 
young pike poked its ugly nose out of the water, and 
there were swarms of crayfish and little fish round 
about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the bot- 
tom and stirred up the water; the pike vanished un- 
der the crayfish and a perch and a tench swam to the 
surface instead of it. Vassya, too, looked into the 
pail. His eyes grew moist and his face looked as ca- 
ressing as before when he saw the fox. He took 
something out of the pail, put it to his mouth and be- 
gan chewing it. 

‘“ Mates,” said Styopka in amazement, ‘‘ Vassya 
is eating a live gudgeon! Phoo!” 

‘It’s not a gudgeon, but a minnow,” Vassya an- 
swered calmly, still munching. 

He took a fish’s tail out of his mouth, looked 
at it caressingly, and put it back again. While he 
was chewing and crunching with his teeth it seemed 
to Yegorushka that he saw before him something 
not human. Vassya’s swollen chin, his lustreless 
eyes, his extraordinary sharp sight, the fish’s tail in 
his mouth, and the caressing friendliness with which 
he crunched the gudgeon made him like an animal. 


ploy The Tales of Chekhov 
Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fish- 


ing was over, too. He walked about beside the 
waggons, thought a little, and, feeling bored, strolled 
off to the village. 

Not long afterwards he was standing in the 
church, and with his forehead leaning on some- 
body’s back, listened to the singing of the choir. 
The service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka 
did not understand church singing and did not care 
for it. He listened a little, yawned, and began look- 
ing at the backs and heads before him. In one head, 
red and wet from his recent bathe, he recognized 
Emelyan. ‘The back of his head had been cropped 
in a straight line higher than is usual; the hair in 
front had been cut unbecomingly high, and Emel- 
yan’s ears stood out like two dock leaves, and seemed 
to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the 
back of his head and his ears, Yegorushka, for some 
reason, thought that Emelyan was probably very 
unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted 
with his hands, his husky voice, his timid air when 
he was bathing, and felt intense pity for him. He 
longed to say something friendly to him. 

‘‘T am here, too,” he said, putting out his hand. 

People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, es- 
pecially those who have at any time in their lives 
conducted, are accustomed to look with a stern and 
unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this 
habit, even when they leave off being in a choir. 
Turning to Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him 
from under his brows and said: 

‘Don’t play in church! ” 

Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the 


The Steppe 235 


ikon-stand. Here he saw interesting people. On 
the right side, in front of everyone, a lady and a 
gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were 
chairs behind them. The gentleman was wearing 
newly ironed shantung trousers; he stood as motion- 
less as a soldier saluting, and held high his bluish 
shaven chin. There was a very great air of dig- 
nity in his stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his 
small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so 
strained from excess of dignity, and his chin was 
drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his 
head were ready to fly off and soar upwards any 
minute. The lady, who was stout and elderly and 
wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one side 
and looked as though she had done someone a fa- 
vour, and wanted to say: ‘‘ Oh, don’t trouble your- 
self to thank me; I don’t like it. . . .” A thick wall 
of Little Russian heads stood all round the carpet. 
Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began 
kissing the local ikons. Before each image he 
slowly bowed down to the ground, without getting 
up, looked round at the congregation, then got up 
and kissed the ikon. The contact of his forehead 
with the cold floor afforded him great satisfaction. 
When the beadle came from the altar with a pair of 
long snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka 
jumped up quickly from the floor and ran up to him. 
‘“‘ Have they given out the holy bread? ” he asked. 
‘There is none; there is none,”’ the beadle mut- 
tered gruffly. “It isno use your...” 
The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of 
the church in a leisurely way, and began strolling 
about the market-place. He had seen a good many 


236 The Tales of Chekhov 


villages, market-places, and peasants in his time, and 
everything that met his eyes was entirely without 
interest for him. At a loss for something to do, he 
went into a shop over the door of which hung a wide 
strip of red cotton. The shop consisted of two 
roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half they sold 
drapery and groceries, in the other there were tubs 
of tar, and there were horse-collars hanging from 
the ceiling; from both came the savoury smell of 
leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been 
watered; the man who watered it must have been a 
very whimsical and original person, for it was sprin- 
kled in patterns and mysterious symbols. The shop- 
keeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face 
and round beard, apparently a Great Russian, was 
standing, leaning his person over the counter. He 
was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his tea, 
and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. His face ex- 
pressed complete indifference, but each sigh seemed 
to be saying: 

“Just wait a minute; I will give it you.” 

‘“‘ Give me a farthing’s worth of sunflower seeds,”’ 
Yegorushka said, addressing him. 

The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out 
from behind the counter, and poured a farthing’s 
worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka’s pocket, 
using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yego- 
rushka did not want to go away. He spent a long 
time in examining the box of cakes, thought a little 
and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered with 
the mildew of age: 

‘“ How much are these cakes?” 

‘Two for a farthing.” 


The Steppe DAF 


Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given 
him the day before by the Jewess, and asked him: 

‘“And how much do you charge for cakes like 
this?” 

The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked 
at it from all sides, and raised one eyebrow. 

“ Like that?” he asked. 

Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a min- 
ute, and answered: 

‘“‘ Two for three farthings. .. . 

A silence followed. 

‘“ Whose boy are you?” the shopman asked, pour- 
ing himself out some tea from a red copper teapot. 

“The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch.”’ 

‘““ There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs,” the shop- 
keeper sighed. He looked over Yegorushka’s head 
towards the door, paused a minute and asked: 
“Would you like some tea?” 

‘Please. .. .’ Yegorushka assented not very 
readily, though he felt an intense longing for his 
usual morning tea. 

The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave 
him with it a bit of sugar that looked as though it 
had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat down on the 
folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to 
ask the price of a pound of sugar almonds, and had 
just broached the subject when a customer walked 
in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea, at- 
tended to his business. He led the customer into 
the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and 
was there a long time discussing something with him. 
The customer, a man apparently very obstinate and 
pig-headed, was continually shaking his head to sig- 


” 


238 The Wales\of /Chekhoy 


nify his disapproval, and retreating towards the 
door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of 
something and began pouring some oats into a big 
sack for him. 

‘“Do you call those oats?” the customer said 
gloomily. ‘‘ Those are not oats, but chaff. It’s a 
mockery to give that to the hens; enough to make the 
hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko.” 

When Yegorushka went back to the river a small 
camp fire was smoking on the bank. The waggon- 
ers were cooking their dinner. Styopka was stand- 
ing in. the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big 
notched spoon. A little on one side Kiruha and 
Vassya, with eyes reddened from the smoke, were 
sitting cleaning the fish. Before them lay the net 
covered with slime and water weeds, and on it lay 
gleaming fish and crawling crayfish. 

Emelyan, who had not long been back from the 
church, was sitting beside Panteley, waving his arm 
and humming just audibly in a husky voice: ‘‘ To 
Thee we sing. . . .’ Dymov was moving about by 
the horses. 

When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and 
Vassya put the fish and the living crayfish together in 
the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail poured them 
all into the boiling water. 

‘‘ Shall I put in some fat?” asked Styopka, skim- 
ming off the froth. 

‘““No need. The fish will make its own gravy,” 
answered. Kiruha. 

Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka 
scattered into the water three big handfuls of millet 
and a spoonful of salt; finally he tried it, smacked 


The Steppe 229 


his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a self-satisfied 
grunt, which meant that the grain was done. 

All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron 
and set to work with their spoons. 

~ You there!) Give’ the little ladvaspoent 
Panteley observed sternly. ‘I dare say he is hun- 
gry too!” 

‘‘ Ours is peasant fare,” sighed Kiruha. 

‘Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hun- 
gry.” 

They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eat- 
ing, not sitting, but standing close to the cauldron 
and looking down into it as in a hole. The grain 
smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with the 
millet. The crayfish could not be hooked out with a 
spoon, and the men simply picked them out of the 
cauldron with their hands; Vassya did so particu- 
larly freely, and wetted his sleeves as well as his 
hands in the mess. But yet the stew seemed to 
Yegorushka very nice, and reminded him of the cray- 
fish soup which his mother used to make at home on 
fast-days. Panteley was sitting apart munching 
bread. 

“Grandfather, why aren’t you eating?” Emel- 
yan asked him. 

‘“T don’t eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things,” the old 
man said, and turned away with disgust. 

While they were eating they all talked. From 
this conversation Yegorushka gathered that all his 
new acquaintances, in spite of the differences of their 
ages and their characters, had one point in common 
which made them all alike: they were all people with 
a splendid past and a very poor present. Of their 


240 The Tales of Chekhov 


past they all—every one of them — spoke with 
enthusiasm; their attitude to the present was almost 
one of contempt. The Russian loves recalling life, 
but he does not love living. Yegorushka did not yet 
know that, and before the stew had been all eaten he 
firmly believed that the men sitting round the caul- 
dron were the injured victims of fate. Panteley told 
them that in the past, before there were railways, he 
used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to 
Nizhni, and used to earn so much that he did not 
know what to do with his money; and what mer- 
chants there used to be in those days! what fish! how 
cheap everything was! Now the roads were 
shorter, the merchants were stingier, the peasants 
were poorer, the bread was dearer, everything had 
shrunk and was on a smaller scale. Emelyan told 
them that in old days he had been in the choir in the 
Lugansky works, and that he had a remarkable voice 
and read music splendidly, while now he had become 
a peasant and lived on the charity of his brother, 
who sent him out with his horses and took half his 
earnings. Vassya had once worked in a match fac- 
tory; Kiruha had been a coachman in a good family, 
and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a three- 
in-hand in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a 
well-to-do peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself 
and had known no trouble till he was twenty, when 
his stern harsh father, anxious to train him to work, 
and afraid he would be spoiled at home, had sent 
him to a carrier’s to work as a hired labourer. Sty- 
opka was the only one who said nothing, but from 
his beardless face it was evident that his life had been 
a much better one in the past. 


The Steppe 241 


Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left 
off eating. Sullenly from under his brows he looked 
round at his companions and his eye rested upon 
Yegorushka. 

‘You heathen, take off your cap,” he said rudely. 
‘You can’t eat with your cap on, and you a gentle- 
man too!” 

Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a 
word, but the stew lost all savour for him, and he 
did not hear Panteley and Vassya intervening on his 
behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting fellow 
was rankling oppressively in his breast, and he made 
up his mind that he would do him some injury, what- 
ever it cost him. 

After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons 
and lay down in the shade. 

“Are we going to start soon, grandfather?” 
Yegorushka asked Panteley. 

“in God's ‘good time, we shall /seti\:otk: 74 
Phere’ no starting yet; it is too hot. 4)... ©) ord, 
Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . . Lie down, 
little lad.” 

Soon there was a sound of snoring from under 
the waggons. Yegorushka meant to go back to the 
village, but on consideration, yawned and lay down 
by the old man. 


VI 


The waggons remained by the river the whole day, 
and set off again when the sun was setting. 

-Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the 

waggon creaked softly and swayed from side to side. 


242 The Tales of Chekhov 


Panteley walked below, stamping his feet, slapping 
himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was 
full of the churring music of the steppes, as it had 
been the day before. 

Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands 
under his head, gazed upwards at the sky. He 
watched the glow of sunset kindle, then fade away; 
guardian angels covering the horizon with their gold 
wings disposed themselves to slumber. The day 
had passed peacefully; the quiet peaceful night had 
come, and they could stay tranquilly at home in 


heaven. . . . Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees 
grow dark and the mist fall over the earth — saw 
the stars light up, one atter the other. 21). 


When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep 
sky thoughts and feelings for some reason merge in 
a sense of loneliness. One begins to feel hopelessly 
solitary, and everything one used to look upon as 
near and akin becomes infinitely remote and value- 
less; the stars that have looked down from the sky 
thousands of years already, the mists and the incom- 
prehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of 
man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is 
left face to face with them and tries to grasp their 
significance. One is reminded of the solitude await- 
ing each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life 
seems awl). hull iot despair yi vene 

Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was 
sleeping now under the cherry-trees in the cemetery. 
He remembered how she lay in her coffin with pen- 
nies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and 
let down into the grave; he even recalled the hollow 
sound of the clods of earth on the coffin lid... . 


The Steppe 243 


He pictured his granny in the dark and narrow cofhn, 
helpless and deserted by everyone. His imagination 
pictured his granny suddenly awakening, not under- 
standing where she was, knocking upon the lid and 
calling for help, and in the end swooning with horror 
and dying again. He imagined his mother dead, 
Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky, Solomon. 
But however much he tried to imagine himself in the 
dark tomb, far from home, outcast, helpless and 
dead, he could not succeed; for himself personally 
he could not admit the possibility of death, and 
felt that he would never die... . 

Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, 
walked below and went on reckoning up his thoughts. 

All right: . .: Nice gentlefolk, : . .”’ he mut- 
tered. ‘‘ Took his little lad to school — but how he 
is doing now I haven’t heard say —in Slavyano- 
serbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching 
them to be very clever. . . . No, that’s true —a 
nice little lad, no harm in him. . . . He'll grow up 
and be a help to his father. . . . You, Yegory, are 
little now, but you'll grow big and will keep your 
father and mother. . . . So it is ordained of God, 
‘Honour your father and your mother.’ . . . I had 
children myself, but they were burnt. . . . My wife 
was burnt and ’my \children, : ..' that’s! true:)))..': 
The hut caught fire on the night of Epiphany... . 
I was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In 
Oryol. . . . Marya dashed out into the street, but 
remembering that the children were asleep in the 
hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. .. . 
Next day they found nothing but bones.” 

About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners 


244 The Tales of Chekhov 


were again sitting round‘a small camp fire. While 
the dry twigs and stems were burning up, Kiruha and 
Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a 
creek; they vanished into the darkness, but could be 
heard all the time talking and clinking their pails; 
so the creek was not far away. ‘The light from the 
fire lay a great flickering patch on the earth; though 
the moon was bright, yet everything seemed impen- 
etrably black beyond that red patch. The light was 
in the waggoners’ eyes, and they saw only part of 
the great road; almost unseen in the darkness the 
waggons with the bales and the horses looked like 
a mountain of undefined shape. Twenty paces from 
the camp fire at the edge of the road stood a wooden 
cross that had fallen aslant. Before the camp fire 
had been lighted, when he could still see things at a 
distance, Yegorushka had noticed that there was a 
similar old slanting cross on the other side of the 
great road. 

Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya 
filled the cauldron and fixed it over the fire. Sty- 
opka, with the notched spoon in his hand, took his 
place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily 
into the water for the scum to rise. Panteley and 
Emelyan were sitting side by side in silence, brood- 
ing over something. Dymov was lying on his stom-— 
ach, with his head propped on his fists, looking into 
the fire. . . . Styopka’s shadow was dancing over 
him, so that his handsome face was at one minute 
covered with darkness, at the next lighted up... . 
Kiruha and Vassya were wandering about at a little 
distance gathering dry grass and bark for the fire. 
Yegorushka, with his hands in his pockets, was 


The Steppe 245 


standing by Panteley, watching how the fire de- 
voured the grass. 

All were resting, musing on something, and they 
glanced cursorily at the cross over which patches of 
red light were dancing. ‘There is something melan- 
choly, pensive, and extremely poetical about a soli- 
tary tomb; one feels its silence, and the silence gives 
one the sense of the presence of the soul of the un- 
known man who lies under the cross. Is that soul 
at peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in the moon- 
light? Near the tomb the steppe seems melancholy, 
dreary and mournful; the grass seems more sorrow- 
ful, and one fancies the grasshoppers chirrup less 
freely, and there is no passer-by who would not re- 
member that lonely soul and keep looking back at the 
tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the 
mistss: 475 

‘* Grandfather, what is that cross for?” asked 
Yegorushka. 

Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov 
and asked: 

“Nikola, isn’t this the place where the mowers 
killed the merchants? ”’ 

Dymoy not very readily raised himself on his el- 
bow, looked at the road and said: 

"OMESMitisuisy eric 

A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry 
stalks, crushed them up together and thrust them 
under the cauldron. The fire flared up brightly; 
Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the 
shadow cast by the cross danced along the road in 
the dusk beside the waggons. 

“Yes, they were killed,” Dymov said reluctantly. 


246 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘“Two merchants, father and son, were travelling, 
selling holy images. They put up in the inn not far 
from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The 
old man had a drop too much, and began boasting 
that he had a lot of money with him. We all know 
merchants are a boastful set, God preserve us. . . . 
They can’t resist showing off before the likes of us. 
And at the time some mowers were staying the night 
at the inn. So they overheard what the merchants 
said and took note of it.” 

Oy Lord tas) itoly: Mother )"\, sighed Yhan- 
teley. 

‘’ Next day, as soon as it was light,” Dymov went 
on, ‘‘ the merchants were preparing to set off and the 
mowers tried to join them. ‘Let us go together, 
your worships. It will be more cheerful and there 
will be less danger, for this is an out-of-the-way 
place:\.).)4) Phe! ‘merchants had) tol /travelijatia 
walking pace to avoid breaking the images, and that 
justisuited the mowers.) 5); 

Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched. 

‘“’ Yes,” he went on, yawning. ‘‘ Everything went 
all right till they reached this spot, and then the 
mowers let fly at them with their scythes. The son, 
he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe from 
one of them, and he used it, too. .. . Well, of 
course, they got the best of it because there were 
eight of them. They hacked at the merchants so 
that there was not a sound place left on their bodies; 
when they had finished they dragged both of them 
off the road, the father to one side and the son to 
the other. Opposite that cross there is another cross 


The Steppe 247 


on this side. . . . Whether it is still standing, I 
don't know: 320. can't seefcony heresy ey 

Tt is, sald nical, 

“They say they did not find much money after- 
wards.” 

‘“No,” Panteley confirmed; “they only found a 
hundred roubles.” 

‘“And three of them died afterwards, for the 
merchant had cut them badly with the scythe, too. 
They died from loss of blood. One had his hand 
cut off, so that they say he ran three miles without 
his hand, and they found him on a mound close to 
Kurikovo. He was squatting on his heels, with his 
head on his knees, as though he were lost in thought, 
but when they looked at him there was no life in him 
andi he was deadars ji 

‘They found him by the track of blood,” said 
Panteley. 

Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was 
a hush. From somewhere, most likely from the 
creek, floated the mournful cry of the bird: “Sleep! 
sleep! sleep!” 

“There are a great many wicked people in the 
world,” said Emelyan. 

‘“A great many,’ assented Panteley, and he 
moved up closer to the fire as though he were fright- 
ened. “A great many,” he went on in a low voice. 
‘ Pve seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked peo- 
ple! . . . I have seen a great many holy and just, 
too. . . . Queen of Heaven, save us and have mercy 
onus. I remember once thirty years ago, or maybe 
more, I was driving a merchant from Morshansk. 


248 The Tales of Chekhov 


The merchant was a jolly handsome fellow, with 
money, \too|.).. the; merchant. was). (al) mice 
man, no harm in him. . . . So we put up for the 
night ataninn. And in Russia the inns are not what 
they are in these parts. There the yards are roofed 
in and look like the ground floor, or let us say like 
barns in good farms. Only a barn would be a bit 
higher. So we put up there and were all right. 
My merchant was in a room, while I was with the 
horses, and everything was as it should be. So, lads, 
I said my prayers before going to sleep and began 
walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I 
couldn’t see anything; it was no good trying. So I 
walked about a bit up to the waggons, or nearly, 
when I saw a light gleaming. What could it mean? 
I thought the people of the inn had gone to bed long 
ago, and besides the merchant and me there were no 
other guests in the inn. . . . Where could the light 
have come from? I felt suspicious. . . . I went 
closer . . . towards the light. . . . The Lord have 
mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I 
looked and there was a little window with a grat- 
ing, . . . close to the grount, in the house. . . . I 
lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I 
looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . .” 
Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a hand- 
ful of twigs into the fire. After waiting for it to 
leave off crackling and hissing, the old man went on: 
‘I looked in and there was a big cellar, black 
and dark. . . . There was a lighted lantern on 
a tub. In the middle of the cellar were about a 
dozen men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up, 
sharpening long knives. ... Ugh! So we had 


The Steppe 249 


fallen into a nest of robbers. . . . What’s to be 
done? I rantothe merchant, waked him up quietly, 
and said: ‘ Don’t be frightened, merchant,’ said I, 
‘but we are in a bad way. We have fallen into a 
nest of robbers,’ I said. He turned pale and asked: 
‘What are we to do now, Panteley? I have a lot of 
money that belongs to orphans. As for my life,’ 
he said, ‘ that’s in God’s hands. I am not afraid to 
die, but it’s dreadful to lose the orphans’ money,’ 
said he. .. . What were we to do? Phe gates 
were locked; there was no getting out. If there had 
been a fence one could have climbed over it, but 
with the yard shut up! . . . ‘ Come, don’t be fright- 
ened, merchant,’ said I; ‘ but pray to God. Maybe 
the Lord will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still,’ 
said I, ‘and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, 
I -shall think of something: 2,4); ) 4) Richt! ocak 
prayed to God and the Lord put the thought into my 
mind. . . . I clambered up on my chaise and softly, 

. softly so that no one should hear, began pull- 
ing out the straw in the thatch, made a hole and crept 
out, crept out. . . . Then I jumped off the roof and 
ran along the road as fast asI could. I ran and ran 
till I was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles 
without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I 
saw a village. I ran up to a hut and began tapping 
at a window. ‘Good Christian people,’ I said, and 
told them all about it, ‘do not let a ‘Christian soul 
perish. .././2), 2!) waked): them)all- pepsi ine 
peasants gathered together and went with me, . . . 
one with a cord, one with an oakstick, others with 
pitchforks. . . . We broke in the gates of the inn- 
yard and went straight to the cellar. . . . And the 


250 The Tales of Chekhov 


robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and 
were going to kill the merchant. The peasants took 
them, every one of them, bound them and carried 
them to the police. The merchant gave them three 
hundred roubles in his joy, and gave me five gold 
pieces and put my name down. They said that they 
found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps 


and) heaps) of | them." Bones! \.). (se mthey, 
robbed people and then buried them, so that there 
should be no traces. . . . Well, afterwards they 


were punished at Morshansk.”’ 

Panteley had finished his story, and he looked 
round at his listeners. They were gazing at him in 
silence. The water was boiling by now and Styopka 
was skimming off the froth. 

 Isiithe fatireadyr (’ Kiruha asked) him pina 
whisper. 

i) WWartiay little: so.) Directhys,: 

Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he 
were afraid that the latter might begin some story 
before he was back, ran to the waggons; soon he 
came back with a little wooden bowl and began 
pounding some lard in it. 

‘“‘T went another journey with a merchant, too, 

. .” Panteley went on again, speaking as before in 
a low voice and with fixed unblinking eyes. ‘‘ His 
name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. 
He was a nice man, . . . the merchant was. We 
stopped in the same way at aninn. . . . He indoors 
and me with the horses. . . . The people of the 
house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly 
good sort of people; the labourers, too, seemed all 
right; but yet, lads, I couldn’t sleep. I had a queer 


The Steppe Det 


feeling in my heart, . . . a queer feeling, that was 
just it. The gates were open and there were plenty 
of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not my- 
self. Everyone had been asleep long ago. It was 
the middle of the night; it would soon be time to 
get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could 
not close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And 
then, lads, I heard this sound, ‘ Toop! toop! toop!’ 
Someone was creeping up to the chaise. I poke my 
head out, and there was a peasant woman in noth- 
ing but her shift and with her feet bare. ... 
‘What do you want, good woman?’ I asked. And 
she was all of a tremble; her face was terror-stricken. 
Get ae ile man,’ said she; ‘ the people are 
plotting evil. . They mean to kill your merchant. 
With my own ears I heard the master whispering 
with his wife. . . .’ So it was not for nothing, the 
foreboding of my heart! ‘And who are you?’ I 
asked. ‘I am their cook,’ she said... . Right! 
. So I got out of the chaise and went to the 
merchant. I waked him up and said: ‘ Things 
aren’t quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make 
haste and rouse yourself from sleep, your worship, 
and dress now while there is still time,’ I said; ‘ and 
to save our skins, let us get away fromtrouble.’ He 
had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened 
and, mercy on us! I saw, Holy Mother! the inn- 
keeper and his wife come into the room with three 
labourers. . . . So they had persuaded the labour- 
ers to join them. ‘The merchant has a lot of 
money, and we'll go shares,’ they told them. Every 
one of the five had a long knife in their hand... 
each a knife. The innkeeper locked the door and 


phe The Tales of Chekhov 


said: Say) your (prayers, \travellersy /) Wangan 
you begin screaming,’ they said, ‘we won't let you 
say your prayers before you die... .’ As though 
we could scream! I had such a lump in my throat 
I could not cry out. . . . The merchant wept and 
said: ‘Good Christian people! you have resolved 
to kill me because my money tempts you. Well, so 
be it; I shall not be the first nor shall I be the last. 
Many of us merchants have been murdered at inns. 
But why, good Christian brothers,’ says he, ‘ murder 
my driver? Why should he have to suffer for my 
money?’ And he said that so pitifully! And the 
innkeeper answered him: ‘If we leave him alive,’ 
said he, ‘ he will be the first to bear witness against 
us. One may just as well kill two as one. You can 
but answer once for seven misdeeds. . . . Say your 
prayers, that’s all you can do, and it is no good talk- 
ing!’ The merchant and I knelt down side by side 
and wept and said our prayers. He thought of his 
children. I was young in those days; I wanted to 
live. . . . We looked at the images and prayed, and 
so pitifully that it brings a tear even now. . . . And 
the innkeeper’s wife looks at us and says: ‘Good 
people,’ said she, ‘don’t bear a grudge against us 
in the other world and pray to God for our punish- 
ment, for it is want that drives us to it.’ We prayed 
and wept and prayed and wept, and God heard us. 
He had pity on us, I suppose. . . . At the very min- 
ute when the innkeeper had taken the merchant by 
the beard to rip open his throat with his knife sud- 
denly someone seemed to tap at the window from the 
yard! We all started, and the innkeeper’s hands 
dropped. . . . Someone was tapping at the window 


The Steppe 252 


and shouting: ‘ Pyotr Grigoritch,’ he shouted, ‘ are 
you here? Get ready and let’s go!’ The people 
saw that someone had come for the merchant; they 
were terrified and took to their heels. . . . And we 
made haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and 
were out of sight in a minute. . . .” 

“Who was it knocked at the window?” asked 


Dymovy. 
‘At the window? It must have been a holy saint 
or angel, for there was no one else. . . . When we 


drove out of the yard there wasn’t a soul in the 
street. . . . It was the Lord’s doing.” 

Panteley told other stories, and in all of them 
“long knives” figured and all alike sounded made 
up. Had he heard these stories from someone else, 
or had he made them up himself in the remote past, 
and afterwards, as his memory grew weaker, mixed 
up his experiences with his imaginations and be- 
come unable to distinguish one from the other? 
Anything is possible, but it is strange that on this 
occasion and for the rest of the journey, whenever 
he happened to tell a story, he gave unmistakable 
preference to fiction, and never told of what he really 
had experienced. At the time Yegorushka took it 
all for the genuine thing, and believed every word; 
later on it seemed to him strange that a man who 
in his day had travelled all over Russia and seen and 
known so much, whose wife and children had been 
burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of 
his life that whenever he was sitting by the camp fire 
he was either silent or talked of what had never 
been. 

Over their porridge they were all silent, think- 


254 The Tales of Chekhov 


ing of what they had just heard. Life is terrible 
and marvellous, and so, however terrible a story you 
tell in Russia, however you embroider it with nests 
of robbers, long knives and such marvels, it always 
finds an echo of reality in the soul of the listener, 
and only a man who has been a good deal affected 
by education looks askance distrustfully, and even he 
will be silent. The cross by the roadside, the dark 
bales of wool, the wide expanse of the plain, and the 
lot of the men gathered together by the camp fire — 
all this was of itself so marvellous and terrible that 
the fantastic colours of legend and fairy-tale were 
pale and blended with life. 

All the others ate out of the cauldron, but Panteley 
sat apart and ate his porridge out of a wooden bowl. 
His spoon was not like those the others had, but was 
made of cypress wood, with a little cross on it. 
Yegorushka, looking at him, thought of the little 
ikon glass and asked Styopka softly: 

“Why does Grandfather sit apart?” 

“He is an Old Believer,” Styopka and Vassya 
answered in a whisper. And as they said it they 
looked as though they were speaking of some secret 
vice or weakness. 

All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories 
there was no inclination to speak of ordinary things. 
All at once in the midst of the silence Vassya drew 
himself up and, fixing his lustreless eyes on one point, 
pricked up his ears. 

‘What is it?’’ Dymov asked him. 

‘‘ Someone is coming,” answered Vassya. 

“Where do you see him?” 


‘““Yo-on-der! There’s something white... .” 


The Steppe 255 


There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the 
direction in which Vassya was looking; everyone lis- 
tened, but they could hear no sound of steps. 

“Ts he coming by the highroad?”’ asked Dymov. 

‘“No, over the open country. . . . He is coming 
this way.” 

A minute passed in silence. 

‘“And maybe it’s the merchant who was buried 
here walking over the steppe,” said Dymov. 

All looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances 
and suddenly broke into a laugh. They felt 
ashamed of their terror. 

‘“ Why should he walk?” asked Panteley. ‘“ It’s 
only those walk at night whom the earth will not 
take to herself. And the merchants were all right. 
. .. The merchants have received the crown of 
martyrs.” 

But all at once they heard the sound of steps; 
someone was coming in haste. 

‘““He’s carrying something,” said Vassya. 

They could hear the grass rustling and the dry 
twigs crackling under the feet of the approaching 
wayfarer. But from the glare of the camp fire noth- 
ing could be seen. At last the steps sounded close 
by, and someone coughed. The flickering light 
seemed to part; a veil dropped from the waggoners’ 
eyes, and they saw a man facing them. 

Whether it was due to the flickering light or be- 
cause everyone wanted to make out the man’s face 
first of all, it happened, strangely enough, that at 
the first glance at him they all saw, first of all, not 
his face nor his clothes, but his smile. It was an 
extraordinarily good-natured, broad, soft smile, like 


256 The Tales of Chekhov 


that of a baby on waking, one of those infectious 
smiles to which it is difficult not to respond by smil- 
ing too. ‘The stranger, when they did get a good 
look at him, turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly 
and in no way remarkable. He was a tall Little 
Russian, with a long nose, long arms and long legs; 
everything about him seemed long except his neck, 
which was so short that it made him seem stooping. 
He was wearing a clean white shirt with an em- 
broidered collar, white trousers, and new high boots, 
and in comparison with the waggoners he looked 
quite a dandy. In his arms he was carrying some- 
thing big, white, and at the first glance strange-look- 
ing, and the stock of a gun also peeped out from be- 
hind his shoulder. 

Coming from the darkness into the circle of light, 
he stopped short as though petrified, and for half a 
minute looked at the waggoners as though he would 
have said: ‘“* Just look what a smile I have! ” 

Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still 
more radiantly and said: 

‘* Bread and salt, friends! ” 

“You are very welcome!’”’ Panteley answered for 
them all. 

The stranger put down by the fire what he was 
carrying in his arms — it was a dead bustard — and 
greeted them once more. 

They all went up to the bustard and began exam- 
ining it. 

‘“A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?” 
asked Dymov. 

‘“Grape-shot. You can’t get him with small shot, 


The Steppe pCa | 


he won’t let you get near enough. Buy it, friends! 
I will let you have it for twenty kopecks.”’ 

“What use would it be to us? It’s good roast, 
but I bet it would be tough boiled; you could not 
Sct-your teethsintowe. i015) 

“Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gen- 
try at the farm; they would give me half a rouble for 
it. But it’s a long way to go — twelve miles! ” 

The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid 
it beside him. 

He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, 
and, screwing up his eyes at the firelight, apparently 
thinking of something very agreeable. ‘They gave 
him a spoon; he began eating. 

“Who are you?”’ Dymoy asked him. 

The stranger did not hear the question; he made 
no answer, and did not even glance at Dymov. 
Most likely this smiling man did not taste the flavour 
of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it me- 
chanically, lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes 
very full and sometimes quite empty. He was not 
drunk, but he seemed to have something nonsensical 
in his head. 

‘““T ask you who you are?” repeated Dymov. 

‘“T?” said the unknown, starting. ‘‘ Konstantin 
Zvonik from Rovno. It’s three miles from here.” 

And anxious to show straight off that he was not 
quite an ordinary peasant, but something better, Kon- 
stantin hastened to add: 

‘“'We keep bees and fatten pigs.”’ 

‘Do you live with your father or in a house of 
your own?” 


258 The Tales of Chekhov 


‘No; now I am living in a house of my own. 
I have parted. This month, just after St. Peter’s 
at I got married. I am a married man now! 

. It’s eighteen days since the wedding.” 

“That's a good thing,” said Panteley. “ Mar- 
riage is a good thing. . . . God’s blessing is on it.” 

‘His young wife sits at home while he rambles 
about the steppe,” laughed Kiruha. “ Queer 
chap!” 

As though he had been pinched on the tenderest 
spot, Konstantin started, laughed and flushed crim- 
son. 

‘But, Lord, she is not at home! ”’ he said quickly, 
taking the spoon out of his mouth and looking round 
at everyone with an expression of delight and won- 
der. ‘‘ She is not; she has gone to her mother’s for 
three days! Yes, indeed, she has gone away, and I 
feel as though I were not married. ; 

Konstantin waved his hand and tuened his head; 
he wanted to go on thinking, but the joy which 
beamed in his face prevented him. As though he 
were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, 
laughed, and again waved his hand. He was 
ashamed to share his happy thoughts with strangers, 
but at the same time he had an irresistible longing 
to communicate his joy. 

‘She has gone to Demidovo to see her mother,” 
he said, blushing and moving his gun. “ She’ll be 
back to-morrow. . . . She said she would be back 
to dinner.” 

‘* And do you miss her?” said Dymov. 

““Oh, Lord, yes; I should think so. We have 
only been married such a little while, and she has 


The Steppe 259 


gone away... . Eh! Oh, but she is a tricksy one, 
God strike me dead! She is such a fine, splendid 
girl, such a one for laughing and singing, full of 
life and fire! When she is there your brain is in a 
whirl, and now she is away I wander about the 
steppe like a fool, as though I had lost something. 
I have been walking since dinner.”’ 

Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and 
laughed. 

“You love her, then, . . .” said Panteley. 

“She is so fine and splendid,” Konstantin re- 
peated, not hearing him; “ such a housewife, clever 
and sensible. You wouldn’t find another like her 
among simple folk in the whole province. She has 
gone away. . . . But she is missing me, I kno-ow! 
I know the little magpie. She said she would be 
back to-morrow by dinner-time. . . . And just think 
how queer!’ Konstantin almost shouted, speaking a 
note higher and shifting his position. “ Now she 
loves me and is sad without me, and yet she would 
not marry me.” 

‘* But eat,” said Kiruha. 

‘She would not marry me,” Konstantin went on, 
not heeding him. ‘‘ I have been struggling with her 
for three years! I saw her at the Kalatchik fair; I 
fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang my- 
self. . . . I live at Rovno, she at Demidovo, more 
than twenty miles apart, and there was nothing I 
could do. I sent match-makers to her, and all she 
said was: ‘I won't!’ Ah, the magpie! I sent 
her one thing and another, earrings and cakes, and 
twenty pounds of honey — but still she said: ‘I 
won't!’ And there it was. If you come to think 


260 The Tales of Chekhov 


of it, I was not a match for her! She was young 
and lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon 
be thirty, and a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like 
a goat’s, a clear complexion all covered with pim- 
ples — how could I be compared with her! The 
only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then 
the Vahramenkys are well off, too. ‘They've six 
oxen, and they keep a couple of labourers. I was in 
love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken. I 
couldn’t sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, 
and in such a maze, Lord preserve us! I longed to 
see her, and she was in Demidovo. What do you 
think? God be my witness, I am not lying, three 
times a week I walked over there on foot just to 
have a look at her. I gave up my work! I was so 
frantic that I even wanted to get taken on as a la- 
bourer in Demidovo, so as to be near her. I was 
in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen 
times; my father tried thrashing me. For three 
years I was in this torment, and then I made up my 
mind. ‘Damn my soul!’ I said. ‘I will go to the 
town and be a cabman. . . . It seems it is fated not 
to be.’ At Easter I went to Demidovo to have a 
lastilook (athens. vy 

Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a 
mirthful tinkling laugh, as though he had just taken 
someone in very cleverly. 

‘ I saw her by the river with the lads,” he went on. 
“I was overcome with anger. . ..I called her 
aside and maybe for a full hour I said all manner of 
things to her. She fell inlove with me! For three 
years she did not like me! she fell in love with me 
foriwhatilisaid toiher) i, 


The Steppe 261 


‘‘\What did you say to her?”’ asked Dymov. 

“What idid’ T-isay?)* 1 dent ;remembers 2)". 
How could one remember? My words flowed at 
the time like water from a tap, without stopping to 
take breath. Ta-ta-ta! And now I can’t utter a 
word. . . : Well: so: she married’) mes,:)3/.)/ She's 
gone now to her mother’s, the magpie, and while 
she is away here I wander over the steppe. I can’t 
stay at home. It’s more than I can do!” 

Konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which 
he was sitting, stretched himself on the earth, and 
propped his head in his fists, then got up and sat 
down again. Everyone by now thoroughly under- 
stood that he was in love and happy, poignantly 
happy; his smile, his eyes, and every movement, ex- 
pressed fervent happiness. He could not find a 
place for himself, and did not know what attitude 
to take to keep himself from being overwhelmed by 
the multitude of his delightful thoughts. Having 
poured out his soul before these strangers, he settled 
down quietly at last, and, looking at the fire, sank 
into thought. 

At the sight of this happy man everyone felt de- 
pressed and longed to be happy, too. Everyone 
was dreamy. Dymov got up, walked about softly 
by the fire, and from his walk, from the movement of 
his shoulder-blades, it could be seen that he was 
weighed down by depression and yearning. He 
stood still for a moment, looked at Konstantin and 
sat down. 

The camp fire had died down by now; there was 
no flicker, and the patch of red had grown small and 
dim. . . . And as the fire went out the moonlight 


262 The Tales of Chekhov 


grew clearer and clearer. Now they could see the 
full width of the road, the bales of wool, the shafts 
of the waggons, the munching horses; on the further 
side of the road there was the dim outline of the sec- 
ond \cross.)\\.)/.\\. 

Dymoy leaned his cheek on his hand and softly 
hummed some plaintive song. Konstantin smiled 
drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice. They 
sang for half a minute, then sank into silence. 
Emelyan started, jerked his elbows and wriggled 
his fingers. 

*\ Lads,’ he) said\)in}an,imploring: voice) iwicts 
sing something sacred!’ ‘Tears came into his eyes. 
‘* Lads,” he repeated, pressing his hands on his heart, 
‘‘ let’s sing something sacred! ”’ 

‘*T don’t know anything,” said Konstantin. 

Everyone refused, then Emelyan sang alone. He 
waved both arms, nodded his head, opened his 
mouth, but nothing came from his throat but a dis- 
cordant gasp. He sang with his arms, with his 
head, with his eyes, even with the swelling on his 
face; he sang passionately with anguish, and the 
more he strained his chest to extract at least one note 
from it, the more discordant were his gasps. 

Yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with de- 
pression. He went to his waggon, clambered up on 
the bales and lay down. He looked at the sky, and 
thought of happy Konstantin and his wife. Why 
did people get married? What were women in the 
world for? Yegorushka put the vague questions to 
himself, and thought that a man would certainly be 
happy if he had an affectionate, merry and beautiful 


The Steppe 263, 


woman continually living at his side. For some rea- 
son he remembered the Countess Dranitsky, and 
thought it would probably be very pleasant to live 
with a woman like that; he would perhaps have mar- 
ried her with pleasure if that idea had not been so 
shameful. He recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of 
her eyes, her carriage, the clock with the horseman. 
. . . The soft warm night moved softly down upon 
him and whispered something in his ear, and it 
seemed to him that it was that lovely woman bending 
over him, looking at him with a smile and meaning 
to kiss him))727": 

Nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, 
which kept on growing smaller and smaller. Kon- 
stantin and the waggoners were sitting by it, dark 
motionless figures, and it seemed as though there 
were many more of them than before. The twin 
crosses were equally visible, and far, far away, some- 
where by the highroad there gleamed a red light — 
other people cooking their porridge, most likely. 

‘Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the 
world!’ Kiruha sang out suddenly in a harsh voice, 
choked and subsided. The steppe echo caught up 
his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though 
stupidity itself were rolling on heavy wheels over 
the steppe. 

‘It's, time) to) go, said. Panteley (7. siaeur up: 
lads.”’ 

While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin 
walked by the waggons and talked rapturously of 
his wife. 

‘“ Good-bye, mates!” he cried when the waggons 


264 The Tales of Chekhov 


started. ‘‘ Thank you for your hospitality. I shall 
go on again towards that light. It’s more than I 
can stand.” 

And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long 
time they could hear him striding in the direction of 
the light to tell those other strangers of his happi- 
ness. 

When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early 
morning; the sun had not yet risen. The waggons 
were at a standstill. A man in a white cap and a 
suit of cheap grey material, mounted on a little 
Cossack stallion, was talking to Dymov and Kiruha 
beside the foremost waggon. A mile and a half 
ahead there were long low white barns and little 
houses with tiled roofs; there were neither yards nor 
trees to be seen beside the little houses. 

“What village is that, Grandfather?” asked 
Yegorushka. 

‘“That’s the Armenian Settlement, youngster,” 
answered Panteley. ‘‘ The Armenians live there. 
They are a)\\good /sort jof \people;)).\\the)) Anme- 
nians are.” 

The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov 
and Kiruha; he pulled up his little stallion and 
looked across towards the settlement. 

‘What a business, only think!” sighed Panteley, 
looking towards the settlement, too, and shuddering 
at the morning freshness. ‘‘ He has sent a man to 
the settlement for some papers, and he doesn’t come. 
1\)4 Edie should)\have sent Styopka.)’ 

“Who is that, Grandfather?” asked Yegorushka. 

iiVarlamoy.:’ 


My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, 


The Steppe 265 


getting upon his knees, and looked at the white cap. 
it was hard to recognize the mysterious elusive 
Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was 
always “‘on his rounds,’ and who had far more 
money than Countess Dranitsky, in the short, grey 
little man in big boots, who was sitting on an ugly 
little nag and talking to peasants at an hour when 
all decent people were asleep. 

‘He is all right, a good man,” said Panteley, 
looking towards the settlement. ‘‘ God give him 
health —a splendid gentleman, Semyon Alexan- 
dritch. . . . It’s people like that the earth rests 
upon. ‘That's true. . 2. Vhe cocks are not \crow- 
ing yet, and he is already up and about. . . . An- 
other man would be asleep, or gallivanting with vis- 
itors at home, but he is on the steppe all day, .. . 
on his rounds. . . . He does not let things slip. . . . 
No-o! He’s a fine fellow... .” 

Varlamoyv was talking about something, while 
he kept his eyes fixed. The little stallion shifted 
from one leg to another impatiently. 

‘“Semyon Alexandritch!”’ cried Panteley, taking 
off his hat. “ Allow us to send Styopka! -Emelyan, 
call out that Styopka should be sent.” 

But now at last a man on horseback could be 
seen coming from the settlement. Bending very 
much to one side and brandishing his whip above his 
head like a gallant young Caucasian, and wanting 
to astonish everyone by his horsemanship, he flew 
towards the waggons with the swiftness of a bird. 

‘That must be one of his circuit men,” said Pan- 
teley. ‘‘ He must have a hundred such horsemen 
or maybe more.” 


266 The Tales of Chekhov 


Reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, 
and taking off his hat, handed Varlamov a little 
book. Varlamov took several papers out of the 
book, read them and cried: 

‘““ And where is Ivantchuk’s letter? ”’ 

The horseman took the book back, looked at the 
papers and shrugged his shoulders. He began say- 
ing something, probably justifying himself and ask- 
ing to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. 
The little stallion suddenly stirred as though Varla- 
mov had grown heavier. Varlamov stirred too. 

‘““Go along!” he cried angrily, and he waved his 
whip at the man. 

Then he turned his horse round and, looking 
through the papers in the book, moved at a walking 
pace alongside the waggons. When he reached the 
hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a 
better look at him. Varlamov was an elderly man. 
His face, a simple Russian sunburnt face with a small 
grey beard, was red, wet with dew and covered with 
little blue veins; it had the same expression of busi- 
nesslike coldness as Ivan Ivanitch’s face, the same 
look of fanatical zeal for business. But yet what a 
difference could be felt between him and Kuz- 
mitchov! Uncle Ivan Ivanitch always had on his 
face, together with his business-like reserve, a look 
of anxiety and apprehension that he would not find 
Varlamov, that he would be late, that he would miss 
a good price; nothing of that sort, so characteristic 
of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the 
face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the 
price himself, was not looking for anyone, and did 
not depend on anyone; however ordinary his ex- 


The Steppe 267 


terior, yet in everything, even in the manner of hold- 
ing his whip, there was a sense of power and habitual 
authority over the steppe. 

As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at 
him. Only the little stallion deigned to notice Yego- 
rushka; he looked at him with his large foolish eyes, 
and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed 
to Varlamov; the latter noticed it, and without tak- 
ing his eyes off the sheets of paper, said lisping: 

‘* How are you, old man?” 

Varlamov’s conversation with the horseman and 
the way he had brandished his whip had evidently 
made an overwhelming impression on the whole 
party. Everyone looked grave. The man on 
horseback, cast down at the anger of the great man, 
remained stationary, with his hat off, and the rein 
loose by the foremost waggon; he was silent, and 
seemed unable to grasp that the day had begun so 
badly for him. 

“He is a harsh old man, . muttered Pante- 
ley. ‘‘It’sapityheisso harsh! But he is all right, 
a good man. . . . He doesn’t abuse men for noth- 
ine) Lt senonmatten: no... 

After examining the papers, Varlamoy thrust the 
book into his pocket; the little stallion, as though he 
knew what was in his mind, without waiting for or- 
ders, started and dashed along the highroad. 


” 


VII 


On the following night the waggoners had halted 
and were cooking their porridge. On this occasion 


268 The Tales of Chekhov 


there was a sense of overwhelming oppression over 
everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great deal, 
but could not quench their thirst. The moon was in- 
tensely crimson and sullen, as though it were sick. 
The stars, too, were sullen, the mist was thicker, the 
distance more clouded. Nature seemed as though 
languid and weighed down by some foreboding. 

There was not the same liveliness and talk round 
the camp fire as there had been the day before. All 
were dreary and spoke listlessly and without interest. 
Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain of his 
feet, and continually alluded to impenitent death- 
beds. 
Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw 
in silence; there was an expression of disgust on his 
face as though the straw smelt unpleasant, a spiteful 
and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained that 
his jaw ached, and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan 
was not waving his arms, but sitting still and looking 
gloomily at the fire. Yegorushka, too, was weary. 
This slow travelling exhausted him, and the sultri- 
ness of the day had given him a headache. 

While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to 
relieve his boredom, began quarrelling with his com- 
panions. 

‘“ Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to 
put his spoon in,” he said, looking spitefully at Emel- 
yan. “Greedy! always contrives to sit next the 
cauldron. He’s been a church-singer, so he thinks 
he is a gentleman! ‘There are a lot of singers like 
you begging along the highroad! ” 

“What are you pestering me for?”’ asked Emel- 
yan, looking at him angrily. 


The Steppe 269. 


‘To teach you not to be the first to dip into the 
cauldron. Don’t think too much of yourself! ”’ 

“You are a fool, and that is all about it!” 
wheezed out Emelyan. 

Knowing by experience how such conversations 
usually ended, Panteley and Vassya intervened and 
tried to persuade Dymoy not to quarrel about noth- 
ing. 

‘A church-singer!’”? The bully would not desist, 
but laughed contemptuously. ‘ Anyone can sing like 
that — sit in the church porch and sing ‘ Give me 
alms, for Christ’s sake!’ Ugh! you are a nice fel- 
low!” 

Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an ir- 
ritating effect on Dymov. He looked with still 
greater hatred at the ex-singer and said: 

‘“‘T don’t care to have anything to do with you, or 
I would show you what to think of yourself.” 

‘“ But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?”’ 
Emelyan cried, flaring up. ‘‘ Am I interfering with 
you?” 

‘What did you call me?” asked Dymov, draw- 
ing himself up, and his eyes were suffused with blood. 
Ebivam 2 Mazeppar Yes? “fake that, then 
go and look for it.” 

Dymoy snatched the spoon out of Emelyan’s hand 
and flung it far away. Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka 
ran to look for it, while Emelyan fixed an imploring 
and questioning look on Panteley. His face sud- 
denly became small and wrinkled; it began twitching, 
and the ex-singer began to cry like a child. 

Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymoy, felt as 
though the air all at once were unbearably stifling, 


270 The Tales of Chekhov 


as though the fire were scorching his face; he longed 
to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness, but 
the bully’s angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. 
With a passionate desire to say something extremely 
offensive, he took a step towards Dymov and brought 
out, gasping for breath: 

‘You are the worst of the lot; I can’t bear you! ” 

After this he ought to have run to the waggons, 
but he could not stir from the spot and went on: 

“In the next world you will burn in hell! Tl 
complain to Ivan Ivanitch. Don’t you dare insult 
Emelyan! ”’ 

‘‘ Say this too, please,” laughed Dymov: “ ‘ every 
little sucking-pig wants to lay down the law.’ Shall 
T pull your) ear?) 

Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and 
something which had never happened to him before 
—he suddenly began shaking all over, stamping 
his feet and crying shrilly: 

‘“* Beat him, beat him! ”’ 

Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and 
ran staggering back to the waggon. The effect pro- 
duced by his outburst he did not see. Lying on the 
dales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered: 

‘‘ Mother, mother! ”’ 

And these men and the shadows round the camp 
fire, and the dark bales and the far-away lightning, 
which was flashing every minute in the distance — 
all struck him now as terrible and unfriendly. He 
was overcome with terror and asked himself in des- 
pair why and how he had come into this unknown 
land in the company of terrible peasants? Where 
was his uncle now, where was Father Christopher, 


The Steppe 271 


where was Deniska? Why were they so long in 
coming? Hiadn’t they forgotten him? At the 
thought that he was forgotten and cast out to the 
mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that 
he had several times an impulse to jump off the bales 
of wool, and run back full speed along the road; 
but the thought of the huge dark crosses, which would 
certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning 
flashing in the distance, stopped him. . . . And only 
when he whispered, ‘‘ Mother, mother!’ he felt as 
it were a little better. 

The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. 
After Yegorushka had run away from the camp fire 
they sat at first for a long time in silence, then they 
began speaking in hollow undertones about some- 
thing, saying that it was coming and that they must 
make haste and get away from it. . . . They quickly 
finished supper, put out the fire and began harnessing 
the horses in silence. From their fluster and the 
broken phrases they uttered it was apparent they 
foresaw some trouble. Before they set off on their 
way, Dymov went up to Panteley and asked softly: 

‘What’s his name?” 

“ Yegory,” answered Panteley. 

Dymovy put one foot on the wheel, caught hold 
of the cord which was tied round the bales and pulled 
himself up. Yegorushka saw his face and curly 
head. The face was pale and looked grave and ex- 
hausted, but there was no expression of spite in it. 

, wera li") he said softly, “ here, hit mel) 7) 

Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that 
instant there was a flash of lightning. 

“It’s all right, hit me,’ repeated Dymov. And 


272 The Tales of Chekhov 


without waiting for Yegorushka to hit him or ta 
speak to him, he jumped down and said: ‘ How 
dreary I am!” 

Then, swaying from one leg to the other and mov- 
ing his shoulder-blades, he sauntered lazily along- 
side the string of waggons and repeated in a voice 
half weeping, half angry: 

‘How dreary lam! O Lord! Don’t you take 
offence, Emelyan,” he said as he passed Emelyan. 
“Ours is a wretched cruel life!” 

There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, 
like a reflection in the looking-glass, at once a second 
flash in the distance. 

i Vegory. take this, 
something big and dark. 

“What is it?’’ asked Yegorushka. 

‘““A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself 
Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The 
distance had grown perceptibly blacker, and now 
oftener than every minute winked with a pale light. 
The blackness was being bent towards the right as 
though by its own weight. 

“Will there be a storm, Grandfather?” asked 
Yegorushka. 

‘“Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!” Panteley 
said in a high-pitched voice, stamping his feet and 
not hearing the boy. 

On the left someone seemed to strike a match in 
the sky; a pale phosphorescent streak gleamed and 
went out. There was a sound as though someone 
very far away were walking over an iron roof, prob- 
ably barefoot, for the iron gave a hollow rumble. 


’ 


cried Panteley, throwing up 


up 


The Steppe: ii) 272 


Y Lisisepanl? seried | Kinuha: 

Between the distance and the horizon on the right 
there was a flash of lightning so vivid that it lighted 
up part of the steppe and the spot where the clear 
sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was swoop- 
ing down, without haste, a compact mass; big black 
shreds hung from its edge; similar shreds pressing 
one upon another were piling up on the right and left 
horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the storm- 
cloud gave it a drunken disorderly air. ‘There was 
a distinct, not smothered, growl of thunder. Yego- 
rushka crossed himself and began quickly putting on 
his great-coat. 

“Tam dreary!” Dymov’s shout floated from the 
foremost waggon, and it could be told from his voice 
that he was beginning to be ill-humoured again. “I 
am so dreary!” 

All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent 
that it almost snatched away Yegorushka’s bundle 
and mat; the mat fluttered in all directions and 
flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka’s face. The 
wind dashed whistling over the steppe, whirled round 
in disorder and raised such an uproar from the grass 
that neither the thunder nor the creaking of the 
wheels could be heard; it blew from the black storm- 
cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust and the scent of 
rain and wet earth. ‘The moonlight grew mistier, as 
it were dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; 
and clouds of dust could be seen hurrying along the 
edge of the road, followed by their shadows. By 
now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and 
lifting from the earth dust, dry grass and feathers, 
was mounting to the very sky; uprooted plants must 


274 The Tales of Chekhov 


have been flying by that very black storm-cloud, and 
how frightened they must have been! But through 
the dust that clogged the eyes nothing could be seen 
but the flash of lightning. 

Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in 
a minute, knelt up and covered himself with the mat. 

‘‘ Panteley-ey!’’ someone shouted in the front. 
ht a ONAN SAE re 

‘I can't!’ Panteley answered in a loud high 
ASicleeh inioe WIRTEC COW RMN USM eNO as vem AMEN ei AL: 

There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled 
across the sky from right to left, then back again, 
and died away near the foremost waggon. 

‘““ Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth,”’ whispered 
Yegorushka, crossing himself. ‘ Fill heaven and 
earth with Thy glory.” 

The blackness in the sky yawned wide and 
breathed white fire. At once there was another clap 
of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when there was a 
flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly 
saw through a slit in the mat the whole highroad to 
the very horizon, all the waggoners and even Ki- 
ruha’s waistcoat. The black shreds had by now 
moved upwards from the left, and one of them, a 
coarse, clumsy monster like a claw with fingers, 
stretched to the moon. Yegorushka made up his 
mind to shut his eyes tight, to pay no attention to it, 
and to wait till it was all over. 

The rain was for some reason long in coming. 
Yegorushka peeped out from the mat in the hope 
that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing over. It 
was fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither 
Panteley, nor the bale of wool, nor himself; he 


The Steppe 25 


looked sideways towards the place where the moon 
had lately been, but there was the same black dark- 
ness there as over the waggons. And in the dark- 
ness the flashes of lightning seemed more violent and 
blinding, so that they hurt his eyes. 

‘“ Panteley! ” called Yegorusnka. 

No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for 
the last time flung up the mat and hurried away. A 
quiet regular sound was heard. A big cold drop fell 
on Yegorushka’s knee, another trickled over his 
hand. He noticed that his knees were not covered, 
and tried to rearrange the mat, but at that moment 
something began pattering on the road, then on the 
shafts and the bales. It was the rain. As though 
they understood one another, the rain and the mat 
began prattling of something rapidly, gaily and most 
annoyingly like two magpies. 

Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his 
boots. While the rain was pattering on the mat, he 
leaned forward to screen his knees, which were sud- 
denly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but 
in less than a minute was aware of a penetrating, un- 
pleasant dampness behind on his back and the calves 
of his legs. He returned to his former position, 
exposing his knees to the rain, and wondered what to 
do to rearrange the mat which he could not see in 
the darkness. But his arms were already wet, the 
water was trickling up his sleeves and down his col- 
lar, and his shoulder-blades felt chilly. And he 
made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and 
wait till it was all over. 

‘ Holy, holy, holy!’ he whispered. 

Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked 


276 The Tales of Chekhov 


with a fearful deafening din; he huddled up and 
held his breath, waiting for the fragments to fall 
upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened 
his eyes and saw a blinding intense light flare out and 
flash five times on his fingers, his wet sleeves, and 
on the trickles of water running from the mat upon 
the bales and down to the ground. There was a 
fresh peal of thunder as violent and awful; the sky 
was not growling and rumbling now, but uttering 
short crashing sounds like the crackling of dry 
wood. 

“Trrah! tah! tah! tah!” the thunder rang out 
distinctly, rolled over the sky, seemed to stumble, and 
somewhere by the foremost waggons or far behind 
to fall with an abrupt angry “ Trrra!”’ 

The flashes of lightning had at first been only ter- 
rible, but with such thunder they seemed sinister and 
menacing. Their magic light pierced through closed 
eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. What 
could he do not to see them? Yegorushka made 
up his mind to turn over on his face. Cautiously, 
as though afraid of being watched, he got on all 
fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he 
turned back again. 

“Trrah! tah! tah!’ floated over his head, rolled 
under the waggons and exploded “‘ Kraa] ” 

Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw 
a new danger: three huge giants with long pikes were 
following the waggon! A flash of lightning 
gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up 
their figures very distinctly. They were men of 
huge proportions, with covered faces, bowed heads, 
and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy and dis- 


The Steppe 277 


pirited and lost in thought. Perhaps they were not 
following the waggons with any harmful intent, and 
yet there was something awful in their proximity. 

Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trem- 
bling all over cried: ‘‘ Panteley! Grandfather! ” 

“ Trrah! tah! tah!” the sky answered him. 

He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were 
there. There were flashes of lightning in two places, 
which lighted up the road to the far distance, the 
whole string of waggons and all the waggoners. 
Streams of water were flowing along the road and 
bubbles were dancing. Panteley was walking beside 
the waggon; his tall hat and his shoulder were cov- 
ered with a small mat; his figure expressed neither 
terror nor uneasiness, as though he were deafened 
by the thunder and blinded by the lightning. 

‘‘ Grandfather, the giants!” Yegorushka shouted 
to him in tears. 

But the old man did not hear. Further away 
walked Emelyan. He was covered from head to 
foot with a big mat and was triangular in shape. 
Vassya, without anything over him, was walking 
with the same wooden step as usual, lifting his feet 
high and not bending his knees. In the flash of 
lightning it seemed as though the waggons were not 
moving and the men were motionless, that Vassya’s 
lifted foot was rigid in the same position. .. . 

Yegorushka called the old man once more. Get- 
ting no answer, he sat motionless, and no longer 
waited for it all to end. He was convinced that 
the thunder would kill him in another minute, that 
he would accidentally open his eyes and see the ter- 
rible giants, and he left off crossing himself, calling 


278 The Dales’ of) Chekhoy, 


the old man and thinking of his mother, and was 
simply numb with cold and the conviction that the 
storm would never end. 

But at last there was the sound of voices. 

V Wegony,) are you\asleep? 1) Panteleyicmedsne- 
low.) Get) down!) she deaf, the /sily little 
thing fyi) 

‘Something like a storm!” said an unfamiliar 
bass voice, and the stranger cleared his throat as 
though he had just tossed off a good glass of vodka. 

Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the wag- 
gon stood Panteley, Emelyan, looking like a triangle, 
and the giants. The latter were by now much 
shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely 
at them they turned out to be ordinary peasants, 
carrying on their shoulders not pikes but pitchforks. 
In the space between Panteley and the triangular 
figure, gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut. So 
the waggons were halting in the village. Yego- 
rushka flung off the mat, took his bundle and made 
haste to get off the waggon. Now when close to 
him there were people talking and a lighted window 
he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was 
crashing as before and the whole sky was streaked 
with lightning. 

i Vlt wasia good storm, allvnight,!): 1)" veanteley 
was muttering.) (Thank) God,\-)./.\ my) feet, ane 
a little softened by the rain. It was all right... . 
Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the 
buesiitius all righty) 

Holy, holy, holy!” wheezed Emelyan, “ it must 
have struck something. ... Are you of these 
parts?’’ he asked the giants. 


The Steppe 279 


“No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. 
We are working at the Platers’.” 

Threshing? ” 

‘“‘Allsorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. 
The lightning, the lightning! It is long since we 
have had such a storm. 

Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a 
lean hunchbacked old woman witha sharp chin. She 
stood holding a tallow candle in her hands, screw- 
ing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs. 

‘“What a storm God has sent us!” she said. 
‘““ And our lads are out for the night on the steppe; 
they'll have a bad time, poor dears! ‘Take off your 
things, little sir, take off your things.” 

Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, 
Yegorushka pulled off his drenched overcoat, then 
stretched out his arms and straddled his legs, and 
stood a long time without moving. The slightest 
movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and 
wetness. His sleeves and the back of his shirt were 
sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was 
dripping. 

‘“ What’s the use of standing there, with your legs 
apart, little lad?” said the old woman. ‘‘ Come, 
sit down.” 

Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went 
up to the table and sat down on a bench near some- 
body’s head. The head moved, puffed a stream of 
air through its nose, made a chewing sound and 
subsided. A mound covered with a_ sheepskin 
stretched from the head along the bench; it was a 
peasant woman asleep. 

The old woman wert out sighing, and came 


280 The Tales of Chekhov 


back with a big water melon and a little sweet 
melon. 

‘Have something to eat, my dear! I have noth- 
ing else to offer you, . . .” she said, yawning. She 
rummaged in the table and took out a long sharp 
knife, very much like the one with which the brigands 
killed the merchants in the inn. ‘“ Have some, my 
dear” 

Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a 
fever, ate a slice of sweet melon with black bread and 
then a slice of water melon, and that made him feel 
colder still. 

“Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, 

. .” sighed the old woman while he was eating. 
iN “ The terror of the Lord! I’d light the candle under 
the ikon, but I don’t know where Stepanida has put it. 
Have some more, little sir, have some more. . . .” 
The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right 
hand behind her, scratched her left shoulder. 

“Tt must be two o’clock now,” she said; ‘‘ it will 
soon be time to get up. Our lads are out on the 
steppe for the night; they are all wet through for 
SUPE Ve Ne 
“Granny,” said Yegorushka. ‘‘I am sleepy.” 

‘Lie down, my dear, lie down,” the old woman 
sighed, yawning. ‘‘Lord Jesus Christ! I was 
asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone were 
knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the 
storm God had sent us. . . . I’d have lighted the 
candle, but I couldn’t find it.” 

Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably 
her own bed, off the bench, took two sheepskins off 
a nail by the stove, and began laying them out for a 


The Steppe 281 


bed for Yegorushka. “The storm doesn’t grow 
less,” she muttered. ‘‘If only nothing’s struck in 
an unlucky hour. Our lads are out on the steppe 
for the night. Lie down and sleep, my dear... . 
Christ be with you, my child. . . . I won’t take away 
the melon; maybe you’ll have a bit when you get up.” 

The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even 
breathing of the sleeping woman, the half-darkness 
of the hut, and the sound of the rain outside, made 
one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing be- 
fore the old woman. He only took-off his boots, lay 
down and covered himself with the sheepskin. 

‘Ts the little lad lying down?” he heard Panteley 
whisper a little later. 

Yes,” answered the old woman in a whisper. 
“The terror of the Lord! It thunders and thun- 
ders, and there is no end to it.” 

“It will soon be over,” wheezed Panteley, sitting 
down;) "it’s; gettine quieter, .... The lads) shave 
gone into the huts, and two have stayed with the 
herses, )) Phewlads have. 4). 2) Dhey ican tis. atae 
horses would be taken away. . . . I'll sit here a bit 
and then go and take my turn. . . . We can’t leave 
them; they would be taken. . . .” 

Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at 
Yegorushka’s feet, talking in hissing whispers and 
interspersing their speech with sighs and yawns. 
And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm 
heavy sheepskin lay on him, but he was trembling all 
over; his arms and legs were twitching, and his whole 
inside was shivering. . . . He undressed under the 
sheepskin, but that was no good. His shivering 
grew more and more acute. 


282 The Tales of Chekhov 


Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, 
and afterwards came back again, and still Yego- 
rushka was shivering all over and could not get to 
sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest 
and oppressed him, and he did not know what it was, 
whether it was the old people whispering, or the 
heavy smell of the sheepskin. The melon he had 
eaten had left an unpleasant metallic taste in his 
mouth. Moreover he was being bitten by fleas. 

“Grandfather, I am cold,” heesaid, and did not 
know his own voice. 

‘Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep,” sighed the 
old woman. 

Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs 
and waved his arms, then grew up to the ceiling and 
turned into a windmill. . . . Father Christopher, 
not as he was in the chaise, but in his full vestments 
with the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill, 
sprinkling it with holy water, and it left off waving. 
Yegorushka, knowing this was delirium, opened his 
eyes. 

‘“ Grandfather,” he called, “‘ give me some wa- 
fora 

No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insuffer- 
ably stifling and uncomfortable lying down. He got 
up, dressed, and went out of the hut. Morning was 
beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no 
longer raining. Shivering and wrapping himself in 
his wet overcoat, Yegorushka walked about the 
muddy yard and listened to the silence; he caught 
sight of a little shed with a half-open door made of 
reeds. He looked into this shed, went into it, and 
sat down in a dark corner on a heap of dry dung. 


The Steppe 283 


There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; 
his mouth was dry and unpleasant from the metallic 
taste. He looked at his hat, straightened the pea- 
cock’s feather on it, and thought how he had gone 
with his mother to buy the hat. He put his hand 
into his pocket and took out a lump of brownish 
sticky paste. How had that paste come into his 
pocket? He thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of 
honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How sopped 
it was, poor thing! 

Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little 
grey overcoat with big bone buttons, cut in the shape 
of a frock-coat. At home, being a new and expen- 
sive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but with 
his mother’s dresses in her bedroom; he was only 
allowed to wear it on holidays. Looking at it, 
Yegorushka felt sorry for it. He thought that he 
and the great-coat were both abandoned to the mercy 
of destiny; he thought that he would never get back 
home, and began sobbing so violently that he almost 
fell off the heap of dung. 

A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers 
about its face, sopping from the rain, came into the 
shed and stared with curiosity at Yegorushka. It 
seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not. De- 
ciding that there was no need to bark, it went cau- 
tiously up to Yegorushka, ate the sticky plaster and 
went out again. 

“There are Varlamov’s men!” someone shouted 
in the street. 

After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out 
of the shed and, walking round a big puddle, made 
his way towards the street. The waggons were 


284 The Tales of Chekhov 


standing exactly opposite the gateway. The 
drenched waggoners, with their muddy feet, were 
sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts, as 
listless and drowsy as flies in autumn. Yego- 
rushka looked at them and thought: ‘‘ How dreary 
and comfortless to be a peasant!’’ He went up to 
Panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft. 

‘Grandfather, I’m cold,” he said, shivering and 
thrusting his hands up his sleeves. 

‘‘ Never mind, we shall soon be there,” yawned 
Panteley. ‘‘ Never mind, you will get warm.” 

It must have been early when the waggons set off, 
for it was not hot. Yegorushka lay on the bales of 
wool and shivered with cold, though the sun soon 
came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and the 
earth. As soon as he closed his eyes he saw Tit and 
the windmill again. Feeling a sickness and heavi- 
ness all over, he did his utmost to drive away these 
images, but as soon as they vanished the dare-devil 
Dymov, with red eyes and lifted fists, rushed at 
Yegorushka with a roar, or there was the sound of 
his complaint: “I am so dreary!” Varlamov 
rode by on his little Cossack stallion; happy Konstan- 
tin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his arms. 
And how tedious these people were, how sickening 
and unbearable! 

Once — it was towards evening —he raised his 
head to ask for water. The waggons were standing 
on a big bridge across a broad river. There was 
black smoke below over the river, and through it 
could be seen a steamer with a barge intow. Ahead 
of them, beyond the river, was a huge mountain 


The Steppe 285 


dotted with houses and churches; at the foot of the 
mountain an engine was being shunted along beside 
some goods trucks. . 

Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor 
engines, nor broad rivers. Glancing at them now, 
he was not alarmed or surprised; there was not even 
a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He 
merely felt sick, and made haste to turn over to the 
edge of the bale. He was sick. Panteley, seeing 
this, cleared his throat and shook his head. 

‘Our little lad’s taken ill,” he said. . ‘‘ He must 
have got a chill to the stomach. ‘The little lad must 

. away from home; it’s a bad lookout!” 


Ae 9 


The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, 
not far from the quay. As Yegorushka climbed 
down from the waggon he heard a very familiar 
voice. Someone was helping him to get down, and 
saying: 

“We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have 
been expecting you all day. We meant to overtake 
you yesterday, but it was out of our way; we came 
by the other road. I say, how you have crumpled 
your coat! You'll catch it from your uncle! ” 

Yegorushka looked into the speaker’s mottled face 
and remembered that this was Deniska. 

‘Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the 
inn now, drinking tea; come along!” 

And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied build- 
ing, dark and gloomy like the almshouse at N. 


286 The Tales of Chekhov 


After going across the entry, up a dark staircase and 
through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska 
reached a little room in which Ivan Ivanitch and 
Father Christopher were sitting at the tea-table. 
Seeing the boy, both the old men showed surprise 
and pleasure. 

“Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!’’ chanted Father 
Christopher. ‘‘ Mr. Lomonosov! ”’ 

‘Ah, our gentleman that is to be, 
chov, “ pleased to see you! ”’ 

Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his 
uncle’s hand and Father Christopher’s, and sat down 
to the table. 

‘““ Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?” 
Father Christopher pelted him with questions as he 
poured him out some tea, with his radiant smile. 
“ Sick of it, I’ve no doubt? God save us all from 
having to travel by waggon or with oxen. You go 
on and on, God forgive us; you look ahead and the 
steppe is always lying stretched out the same as it 
was — you can’t see the end of it! It’s not travel- 
ling but regular torture. Why don’t you drink your 
tea? Drink it up; and in your absence, while you 
have been trailing along with the waggons, we have 
settled all our business capitally. Thank God we 
have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one could 
wish to have done better. .. . We have made a 
good bargain.” 

At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka 
felt an overwhelming desire to complain. He did 
not listen to Father Christopher, but thought how to 
begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father 
Christopher’s voice, which seemed to him harsh and 


” 


said Kuzmit- 


The Steppe 287 


unpleasant, prevented him from concentrating his at- 
tention and confused his thoughts. He had not sat 
at the table five minutes before he got up, went to the 
sofa and lay down. 

‘Well, well,’ said Father Christopher in surprise. 
‘What about your tea?” 

Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka 
leaned his head against the wall and broke into sobs. 

“Well, well!’ repeated Father Christopher, get- 
ting up and going to the sofa. ‘‘ Yegory, what is the 
matter with you? Why are you crying?” 

Pm...) moll, Yeeorushka brought out! 

“Tl?” said Father Christopher in amazement. 
4 hats: not) the right thing, my boy.7: i" One 
mustn’t be ill on a journey. Aiie, aie, what are you 
thinking about, boy . . . eh?” 

He put his hand to Yegorushka’s head, touched his 
cheek and said: 

" Mes, your head’s) feverish. .\. . You must have 
caught cold or else have eaten something. . . . Pray 
to God.” 

‘Should we give him quinine? .. . 
Ivanitch, troubled. 

~* No; he ought to have something hot. .. . 
Yegory, have a little drop of soup? Eh?” 

ries i dont want any, ’) said Yeoorushkar 

“Are you feeling chilly?” 

‘““T was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. 
And ache alliever!’.''.)):” 

Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yego- 
rushka on the head, cleared his throat with a per- 
plexed air, and went back to the table. 

‘T tell you what, you undress and go to bed,” said 


” said Ivan 


288 The Tales of Chekhov 


Father Christopher. ‘‘ What you want is sleep 
now.” 

He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a 
pillow and covered him with a quilt, and over that 
Ivan Ivanitch’s great-coat. Then he walked away 
on tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka 
shut his eyes, and at once it seemed to him that he 
was not in the hotel room, but on the highroad be- 
side the camp fire. Emelyan waved his hands, and 
Dymoy with red eyes lay on his stomach and looked 
mockingly at Yegorushka. 

‘“ Beat him, beat him!” shouted Yegorushka. 

‘He is delirious,” said Father Christopher in an 
undertone. 

‘“Tt’s a nuisance!” sighed Ivan Ivanitch. 

““ He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please 
God, he will be better to-morrow.”’ 

To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his 
eyes and began looking towards the fire. Father 
Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now finished their 
tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was 
smiling with delight, and evidently could not forget 
that he had made a good bargain over his wool; 
what delighted him was not so much the actual profit 
he had made as the thought that on getting home he 
would gather round him his big family, wink slyly 
and go off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive 
them all, and say that he had sold the wool at a 
price below its value, then he would give his son-in- 
law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and say: ‘ Well, 
take it! that’s the way to do business!’ Kuzmit- 
chov did not seem pleased; his face expressed, as 
before, a business-like reserve and anxiety. 


The Steppe 289 


“Tf I could have known that Tcherepahin would 
give such a price,’ he said in a lew voice, “I 
wouldn’t have sold Makarov those five tons at home. 
It is vexatious! But who could have told that the 
price had) gone up herer 

A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar 
and lighted the little lamp before the ikon in the 
corner. Father Christopher whispered something 
in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face like 
a conspirator, as though to say, ‘I understand,” 
went out, and returned a little while afterwards and 
put something under the sofa. Ivan Ivanitch made 
himself a bed on the floor, yawned several times, 
said his prayers lazily, and lay down. 

‘““T think of going to the cathedral to-morrow,” 
said Father Christopher. ‘‘I know the sacristan 
there. I ought to go and see the bishop after mass, 
but they say he is ill.” 

He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was 
no light in the room but the little lamp before the 
ikon. 

‘“ They say he can’t receive visitors,’ Father Chris- 
topher went on, undressing. “So I shall go away 
without seeing him.”’ 

He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Rob- 
inson Crusoe reappear. Robinson stirred something 
in a saucer, went up to Yegorushka and whispered: 

- “TVomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I’m go- 
ing to rub you with oil and vinegar. It’s a good 
thing, only you must say a prayer.” 

Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. 
Father Christopher pulled down the boy’s shirt, and 
shrinking and breathing jerkily, as though he were 


290 The Tales of Chekhov 


being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka’s 
chest. 

‘‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost,” he whispered, “‘ lie with your back up- 
wards — that’s it. . . . You'll be all right to-mor- 
row, \but dont) doitagaims).)1)/s) Vou vanevasmnot 
as fire. JI suppose you were on the road in the 
storm.” 

ce Mes? 

‘You might well fall ill! In the name of the 
Father,\|the Sen,’ and) the’ /Ffoly)Ghost,)7\..:4you 
might well fall ill!” 

After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher 
put on his shirt again, covered him, made the sign 
of the cross over him, and walked away. Then 
Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably 
the old man knew a great many prayers by heart, for 
he stood a long time before the ikon murmuring. 
After saying his prayers he made the sign of the cross 
over the window, the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan 
Ivanitch, lay down on the little sofa without a pillow, 
and covered himself with his full coat. A clock in 
the corridor struck ten. Yegorushka thought how 
long a time it would be before morning; feeling mis- 
erable, he pressed his forehead against the back of 
the sofa and left off trying to get rid of the oppres- 
sive misty dreams. But morning came much sooner 
than he expected. 

It seemed to him that he had not been lying long 
with his head pressed to the back of the sofa, but 
when he opened his eyes slanting rays of sunlight 
were already shining on the floor through the two 


The Steppe 291 


windows of the little hotel room. Father Christo- 
pher and Ivan Ivanitch were not in the room. ‘The 
room had been tidied; it was bright, snug, and smelt 
of Father Christopher, who always smelt of cypress 
and dried cornflowers (at home he used to make the 
holy-water sprinklers and decorations for the ikon- 
stands out of cornflowers, and so he was saturated 
with the smell of them). Yegorushka looked at 
the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots, 
which had been cleaned and were standing side by 
side near the sofa, and laughed. It seemed strange 
to him that he was not on the bales of wool, that 
everything was dry around him, and that there was 
no thunder and lightning on the ceiling. 

He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He 
felt splendid; nothing was left of his yesterday’s ill- 
ness but a slight weakness in his legs and neck. So 
the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered 
the steamer, the railway engine, and the broad river, 
which he had dimly seen the day before, and now 
-he made haste to dress, to run to the quay and have 
a look at them. When he had washed and was put- 
ting on his red shirt, the latch of the door clicked, 
and Father Christopher appeared in the doorway, 
wearing his top-hat and a brown silk cassock over his 
canvas coat and carrying his staff in his hand. Smil- 
ing and radiant (old men are always radiant when 
they come back from church), he put a roll of holy 
bread and a parcel of some sort on the table, prayed 
before the ikon, and said: 

‘“God has sent us blessings — well, how are 
your” 


202 The Tales of Chekhov 


“Quite well now,” answered Yegorushka, kissing 
his hand. 

“Thank God: .,,, 1 have come from mass. 
. . . I’ve been to see a sacristan I know. He in- 
vited me to breakfast with him, but I didn’t go. I 
don’t like visiting people too early, God bless them! ”’ 

He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the 
chest, and without haste undid the parcel. Yego- 
rushka saw a little tin of caviare, a piece of dry stur- 
geon, and a French loaf. 

“See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this,” 
said Father ‘Christopher. ‘‘ There is no need to in- 
dulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday; but I 
thought, I’ve an invalid at home, so it is excusable. 
And the caviare is good, real sturgeon. . . .” 

The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar 
and a tray with tea-things. 

‘Eat some,” said Father ‘Christopher, spreading 
the caviare on a slice of bread and handing it to 
Yegorushka. ‘‘ Eat now and enjoy yourself, but 
the time will soon come for you to be studying. 
Mind you study with attention and application, so 
that good may come of it. What you have to learn 
by heart, learn by heart, but when you have to tell 
the inner sense in your own words, without regard 
to the outer form, then say it in your own words. 
And try to master all subjects. One man knows 
mathematics excellently, but has never heard of 
Pyotr Mogila; another knows about Pyotr Mogila, 
but cannot explain about the moon. But you study 
so as to understand everything. Study Latin, 
French, German, . . . geography, of course, his- 
tory, theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and 


The Steppe 293 


when you have mastered everything, not with haste 
but with prayer and with zeal, then go into the serv- 
ice. When you know everything it will be easy for 
you in any line of life. . You study and strive for 
the divine blessing, and God will show you what 
to be. Whether a doctor, a judge or an engi- 
NECEN Esha 

Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a 
piece of bread, put it in his mouth and said: 

‘The Apostle Paul says: ‘Do not apply your- 
self to strange and diverse studies.’ Of course, if 
it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling up spirits 
from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects 
that can be of no use to yourself or others, better 
not learnthem. You must undertake only what God 
has blessed. Take example . . . the Holy Apos- 
tles spoke in all languages, so you study languages. 
Basil the Great studied mathematics and philosophy 
—so you study them; St. Nestor wrote history — 
so you study and write history. ‘Take example from 
the saints.” 

Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, 
wiped his moustaches, and shook his head. 

“Good!” he said. ‘‘I was educated in the old- 
fashioned way; I have forgotten a great deal by now, 
but still I live differently from other people. In- 
deed, there is no comparison. For instance, in com- 
pany at a dinner, or at an assembly, one says some- 
thing in Latin, or makes some allusion from history 
or philosophy, and it pleases people, and it pleases 
me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court comes 
and one has to take the oath, all the other priests 
are shy, but I am quite at home with the judges, 


294 The Tales of Chekhov 


the prosecutors, and the lawyers. I talk intellectu- 
ally, drink a cup of tea with them, laugh, ask them 
what I don’t know, . . . and they like it. So that’s 
how it is, my boy. Learning is light and ignorance. 
is darkness. Study! It’s hard, of course; nowa- 
days study is expensive. ... Your mother is a 
widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of 
COULSON 2) 

Father Christopher glanced apprehensively to- 
wards the door, and went on in a whisper: 

“ Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won’t desert you. 
He has no children of his own, and he will help 
you. Don’t be uneasy.” 

He looked grave, and whispered still more softly: 

‘“Only mind, Yegory, don’t forget your mother 
and Ivan Ivanitch, God preserve you from it. The 
commandment bids you honour your mother, and 
Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place 
of a father to you. If you become learned, God 
forbid you should be impatient and scornful with 
people because they are not so clever as you, then 
woe, woe to you!”’ 

Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated 
in a thin voice: 

“Woe to you! Woe to you!” : 

Father Christopher’s tongue was loosened, and he 
was, as they say, warming to his subject; he would 
not have finished till dinnertime but the door opened 
and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morn- 
ing hurriedly, sat down to the table, and began 
rapidly swallowing his tea. 

“Well, I have settled all our business,” he said. 
“We might have gone home to-day, but we have 


The Steppe 295 


still to think about Yegor. We must arrange for 
him. My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, 
a friend of hers, lives somewhere here, so perhaps 
she will take him in as a boarder.” 

He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a 
crumpled note and read: 

1 Little Lower ‘Street: INastasya: /Petroyvna 
Toskunoy, living in a house of her own.’ We must 
go at once and try to find her. It’s a nuisance! ”’ 

Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yego- 
rushka left the inn. 

“It’s a nuisance,’ muttered his uncle. ‘‘ You are 
sticking to me like a burr. You and your mother 
want education and gentlemanly breeding and I have 
nothing but worry with you both. . . .” 

When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the 
drivers were not there. They had all gone off to 
the quay early in the morning. In a far-off dark 
corner of the yard stood the chaise. 

‘“ Good-bye, chaise! ’’ thought Yegorushka. 

At first they had to go a long way uphill by a 
broad street, then they had to cross a big market- 
place; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a policeman for 
Little Lower Street. 

‘““T say,” said the policeman, with a grin, “it’s 
a long way off, out that way towards the town graz- 
ing ground.” 

They met several cabs but feat Ivanitch only 
permitted himself such a weakness as taking a 
cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays. 
Yegorushka and he walked for a long while 
through paved streets, then along streets where 
there were only wooden planks at the sides and no 


296 The Tales of Chekhov 


pavements, and in the end got to streets where there 
were neither planks nor pavements. When their 
legs and their tongues had brought them to Little 
Lower Street they were both red in the face, and tak- 
ing off their hats, wiped away the perspiration. 

‘Tell me, please,” said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing 
an old man sitting on a little bench by a gate, ‘‘ where 
is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov’s house? ”’ 

‘“‘ There is no one called Toskunov here,” said the 
old man, after pondering a moment. ‘‘ Perhaps 
it’s Timoshenko you want.” 

“No. Poskunove.) 2027 

‘““Excuse me, there’s no one called Tosku- 
MOV. euie 

Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged 
on farther. 

“You needn’t look,’ the old man called after 
them. ‘I tell you there isn’t, and there isn’t.” 

“Listen, auntie,” said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing 
an old woman who was sitting at a corner with a 
tray of pears and sunflower seeds, ‘“‘ where is Nas- 
tasya Petrovna Toskunov’s house?” 

The old woman looked at him with surprise and 
laughed. 

“Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house 
now!” she cried. ‘Lord! it is eight years. since 
she married her daughter and gave up the house to 
her son-in-law! It’s her son-in-law lives there now.” 

And her eyes expressed: ‘‘ How is it you didn’t 
know a simple thing like that, you fools? ” 

‘“* And where does she live now?”’ Ivan Ivanitch 
asked. 

‘““Oh, Lord!” cried the old woman, flinging up 


The Steppe 297 


her hands in surprise. ‘‘ She moved ever so long 
ago! It’s eight years since she gave up her house 
to her son-in-law! Upon my word!” 

She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be sur- 
prised, too, and to exclaim: ‘‘ You don’t say so,” 
but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly: 

“Where does she live now?” 

The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretch- 
ing out her bare arm to point, shouted in a shrill 
piercing voice: 

‘Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You 
will pass a little red house, then you will see a little 
alley on your left. Turn down that little alley, and 
it will be the third gate on the right. . . .” 

Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little 
red house, turned to the left down the little alley, 
and made for the third gate on the right. On both 
sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey 
fence with big gaps in it. The first part of the 
fence was tilting forwards and threatened to fall, 
while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards to- 
wards the yard. ‘The gate itself stood upright and 
seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best 
—to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch 
opened the little gate at the side, and he and Yego- 
rushka saw a big yard overgrown with weeds and 
burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood 
a little house with a red roof and green shutters. A 
stout woman with her sleeves tucked up and her 
apron held out was standing in the middle of the 
yard, scattering something on the ground and shout- 
ing in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling 
fruit: 


298 The Vales et (Chekhoy, 


Wie hick ou Chicktiiy2) ssiG@hve kale 

Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. 
Seeing the strangers, he ran to the little gate and 
broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a tenor 
bark). 

‘Whom do you want?” asked the woman, put- 
ting up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun. 

‘“Good-morning!”’ Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, 
waving off the red dog with his stick. ‘‘ Tell me, 
please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live 
here 2/7) 

“Yes! But what do you want with her?” 

‘“ Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?”’ 

Si Weel ess Ti mail” 

Very) pleased to) see’ you: 4) .\), Momisee,) your 
old friend Olga Ivanovna Knyasev sends her love 
to you. This is her little son. And I, perhaps you 
remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You 
are one of us from N. . . . You were born among 
us/and married there: ))..7’ 

A silence followed. ‘The stout woman stared 
blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as though not believing 
or not understanding him, then she flushed all over, 
and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out 
of her apron and tears spurted from her eyes. 

‘Olga Ivanovna!”’ she screamed, breathless with 
excitement. ‘‘ My own darling! Ah, holy saints, 
why am I standing here like a fool? My pretty little 
BUNNY 8 te NL) 

She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with 
her tears, and broke down completely. 

‘ Eteavens!):') she.) said, wringing) her “hands, 


‘“Olga’s little boy! How delightful! He is his 


The Steppe 299 


mother all over! The image of his mother! But 
why are you standing in the yard? Come indoors.” 

Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she 
went, she hurried towards the house. Her visitors 
trudged after her. 

“The room has not been done yet,” she said, 
ushering the visitors into a stuffy little drawing- 
room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers. 
, Oh, Mother of God! ; Vassilisa,. 01 and ‘open 
the shutters anyway! My little angel! My little 
beauty! I did not know that Olitchka had a boy like 
that!” 

When she had calmed down and got over her 
first surprise Ivan Ivanitch asked to speak to her 
alone. Yegorushka went into another room; there 
was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage 
with a starling in it, and there were as many ikons 
and flowers as in the drawing-room. Near the ma- 
chine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and 
chubby cheeks like Tit’s, and a clean cotton dress. 
She stared at Yegorushka without blinking, and ap- 
parently felt very awkward. Yegorushka looked at 
her and after a pause asked: 

“What's your name?” 

The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she 
were going to cry, and answered softly: 

EASE ah 263) 

his meant Katka. 

‘He will live with you,” Ivan Ivanitch was whis- 
pering in the drawing-room, “if you will be so kind, 
and we will pay ten roubles a month for his keep. 
He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . .” 

‘ T really don’t know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch! ” 


300 The Tales of Chekhov 


Nastasya Petrovna sighed tearfully. ‘‘ Ten roubles 
a month is very good, but it is a dreadful thing to 
take another person’s child! He may fall ill or 
Something.) oi.) 

When Yegorushka was summoned back to the 
drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch was standing with his 
hat in his hands, saying good-bye. 

“Well, let him stay with you now, then,” he 
said. ‘Good-bye! You stay, Yegor!’’ he said, 
addressing his nephew. ‘‘ Don’t be troublesome; 
mind you obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; 
I am coming again to-morrow.” 

And he went away. Nastasya once more em- 
braced Yegorushka, called him a little angel, and 
with a tear-stained face began preparing for dinner. 
Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside 
her, answering her endless questions and eating hot 
savoury cabbage soup. 

In the evening he sat again at the same table and, 
resting his head on his hand, listened to Nastasya 
Petrovna. Alternately laughing and crying, she 
talked of his mother’s young days, her own mar- 
riage, her children. . . . A cricket chirruped in the 
stove, and there was a faint humming from the 
burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna talked in a 
low voice, and was continually dropping her thimble 
in her excitement; and Katka her granddaughter, 
crawled under the table after it and each time sat 
a long while under the table, probably examining 
Yegorushka’s feet; and Yegorushka listened, half 
dozing and looking at the old woman’s face, her 
wart with hairs on it, and the stains of tears, .. . 
and he felt sad, very sad. He was put to sleep on 


The Steppe 301 


a chest and told that if he were hungry in the night 
he must go out into the little passage and take some 
chicken, put there under a plate in the window. 

Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christo- 
pher came to say good-bye. Nastasya Petrovna was 
delighted to see them, and was about to set the samo- 
var; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry, 
waved his hans and said: 

‘“We have no time for tea! We are just setting 
Of. | 

Before parting they all sat down and were silent 
for a minute. Nastasya Petrovna heaved a deep 
sigh and looked towards the ikon with tear-stained 
eyes. 

“Well,” began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, “so you 
WML Stayey is Soc) 

All at once the look of business-like reserve van- 
ished from his face; he flushed a little and said with 
a mournful smile: 

‘* Mind you work hard. . . . Don’t forget your 
mother, and obey Nastasya Petrovna... . If 
you are diligent at school, Yegor, [ll stand by 
you.” 

He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his 
back to Yegorushka, fumbled for a long time among 
the smaller coins, and, finding a ten-kopeck piece, 
gave it to Yegorushka. 

Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yego- 
rushka. 

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Floly \Ghost., 2) 2. Study,” “he! said!) Work bard, 
my lad. If I die, remember me in your prayers. 
Here is a ten-kopeck piece from.me, too... .” 


302 The Tales of Chekhov 


Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; some- 
thing whispered in his heart that he would never see 
the old man again. 

“IT have applied at the high school already,” 
said Ivan Ivanitch in a voice as though there were a 
corpse in the room. “‘ You will take him for the 
entrance examination on the seventh of August. .. . 
Well, good-bye; God bless you, good-bye, Yegor!” 

* Louimight at least vhave ‘had a) ‘cupi@f tease 
wailed Nastasya Petrovna. 

Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka 
could not see his uncle and Father Christopher go 
out. He rushed to the window, but they were not 
in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been 
barking, was running back from the gate with the 
air of having done his duty. When Yegorushka ran 
out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christo- 
pher, the former waving his stick with the crook, 
the latter his staff, were just turning the corner. 
Yegorushka felt that with these people all that he 
had known till then had vanished from him for ever. 
He sank helplessly on to the little bench, and with 
bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was 
beginning for him now. 


Tc ould chee lee Meee 


THE END 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


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